Back about eight or nine years ago I wrote two columns about the “man cold” in a 12-month time span. This wasn’t on purpose, to be honest. It wasn’t as if Column One was so good that Column Two: Electric Boogaloo was green lit right away.
In fact, I had completely forgotten about the first one until well after I wrote the second, which might suggest I was more under the weather while writing both of those columns than I cared to admit.
What jogged my memory was what happened the days before I completed the trilogy and wrote a third column about male pattern sickness. It’s been erased from the internet and the company I wrote it for barely exists anymore, so I’ll borrow a few lines to get us going here, with some 2022 annotations:
"There's a new man cold commercial," a colleague said. "You won't be offended if we play it, right?"
This is in reference to the Vick’s commercials that seem to find their way back to our TV sets every cold and flu season.
“Of course not,” I replied. I was offended, of course, but not by the spot. I think I was more perturbed that my column hadn't been read by the other folks in the office.
This is not entirely true. I was well aware virtually no one read my columns, but I was young enough that I could be so self-indulgent to continue writing them weekly anyway.
Those who did read the columns may recall that a commercial depicting the "man cold" wouldn't set me off, but rather the idea that there are these kinds of men out there, who become snivelling little babies at the first sniffle or sneeze.
This is still entirely true. When pressed by my partner that this stereotype, in her experience, was entirely accurate and warranted, I uttered three words to her I’ve never said before or since: “not all men” (because, in general, “yes, all men” is the appropriate answer in almost every instance).
That said, I discovered this weekend that I may have a disposition to a certain kind of man cold that hasn't been co-opted by marketers far and wide. The reason for this is simple: the boy-man, crying for his mother is a far more sympathetic creative than the ungrateful bastard who just wants to have a hot toddy and go to sleep.
This weekend, I became that ungrateful bastard.
A lot has changed since 2014. New careers, new relationships, new homes. What hasn’t changed is that when I’m sick, I’m the worst, which was reconfirmed to me earlier this month. As I helped the Kleenex company make their quarter, I realized I was the same ungrateful bastard I was in 2014 and at least once a year between then and 2020.
Honestly, I never care to admit how sick I actually am. Maybe it’s misguided machismo, the “don’t cry unless you’re hurt” mentality many of us grew up with. Maybe it’s a desire to buck what appears to be such a strong stereotype. Maybe - to borrow again from the last column - it's because we’re all stubborn, stupid and set in our ways (yes, all men)
And God forbid if it gets in the way of your plans. Let’s use the cold of Jan. 2018 as an example, where I had more snot and phlegm exiting my body than previously thought humanly possible. Did I go to work every day? Of course. Did I go to a random concert in Barrie? Absolutely. Did I do a day trip to Buffalo to get Sonic and American pizza kits? 100 per cent. Did I wear a mask at any time? Hard no.
Thanksgiving weekend 2022? I felt guilty leaving my living room.
Because, in a post-COVID-19 world, it’s hard to ignore your sniffles or coughing fits, particularly in the middle of a crowded room - if you can even, in good conscience, enter a crowded room. And when I say post-COVID-19 world, I mean it in the sense of how the world has changed since the start of the pandemic, not that the pandemic is over, as so many of us truly, desperately want it to be.
I’ve never been one of the “pandemic is over” people, usually saving such a comment for a sarcastic retort. That belief was punctuated for me the morning when I tested positive, ending my two-and-a-half-year streak of safety, sanitization and perhaps a certain bit of smugness.
The irony, of sorts, is that of the two days I showed symptoms with a negative test, the day I tested positive was, at that point, the most comfortable day of the weekend. I wish I could have smelled the Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin three-wick that was lit, but at least I could still taste the Evan Williams.
I was lucky. My symptoms subsided quickly, and regular testing showed a quick decrease in the thickness of the positive line, allowing normalcy to return within a week, once I tested negative.
Others haven’t been as lucky, and that’s why you’ll never hear me refer to my case as mild. I don’t believe there’s anything mild about a virus that can strike literally anyone with such ferocity and variability.
I also have no doubt that being vigilant with vaccination made this a better experience for me. If I wasn’t vaccinated and hadn’t taken the advice of medical professionals and legitimate scientists, it could have been significantly worse.
And in the hopes of it not happening again, I’m going to keep being as cautious as I have been when out in public. Because, as annoying as it was to be straddled with moderate discomfort, it sure beat being strapped to a hospital bed.
Even an ungrateful bastard can call that a win.
