The Sunday Memory Drawer - The Crud

It'll take a while to get to the memory that was spurred this week, so hang with me.

This past week was an awful one for me.  Besides having a deadline on a project, I came down with a massive sinus infection.  Full blown and nose blown.   It came up suddenly and with a vengeance like one of those summer late afternoon thunderstorms back in New York.

Truth be told, when I live in NY, I averaged about five to six of them a year.  That's all due to changeable weather conditions, dirty air vents, and funky allergies.

Since moving to LA, I really only get about one a year.  There is different pollen out here,so different allergy triggers.   Plus I do a nasal rinse every morning and that certainly helps.

But, this past week, I got hit with a major one.   Mind-numbing headache. A constant nasal drip that resulted in an annoying sore throat.  Plus coughing fits so intense that the muscles in my chest and back are now aching.   

It was what I have always called "The Crud."

I immediately called my internist for an over-the-phone consultation although, given the nasal leakage, I wasn't sure I needed a plumber more than a doctor.  As per usual, he put me on Claritin D plus Flonase.  He tried to give me an antibiotic called Augmentin but my last experience with that pill was akin to a seven day colonoscopy prep.  He substituted another antibiotic and told me to get some rest.

I couldn't help but do that.   I was non-functioning as it was.   I laid down on my bed at 630PM.   Except for hourly coughing exercises that woke me up like an alarm clock on the hour, I was there till the next morning.   Then there were chills and body aches and assorted other nuisances.   I was cold.  I was hot.  The temperature gauge in my body was apparently broken.

So what does this have to do with a Sunday Memory given it all happened this week?

Well, as I was lying semi-conscious on my bed, I kept flashing back to sicknesses when I was a kid.  Those nasty colds you pick up in school.   And the single sensory perception I kept having was of this...

This was my mom's cure all.   When I had respiratory issues, this gooey shit went a variety of places on my body.

Up my nose.

In a pot of steaming water next to my bed.

And liberally it was rubbed all over my chest.

I could never get the smell out of my head.   And suddenly, this week, it came back to me.

I wondered if they still made it.   The next morning, when I turned on my computer, I went to the obvious place.   If it existed, Amazon would sell it.

And sure enough.

I do remember that, as lousy as it smelled, the stuff did work.   I debated putting in an order for a jar.   And then thought about how it would linger if I rubbed it on my chest now, given it's a little hairier than when I was five.   In that case, the odor would probably linger around me until perhaps Game One of the World Series.

I clicked off and crawled back to bed.   Now if I could only remember the name of that cough syrup always prescribed for me by my pediatrician Dr. Fiegoli.

Dinner last night:  Hot and sour soup plus chicken dumplings at Wokcano.