As I sort through my old writings, I notice a lot of pieces about being tired, or being sick. The woes of a working mom with small kids. During the recent covid-hermit times, with the wearing of masks and constant hand-sanitizing, I didn’t catch colds. This week I relearned how miserable a plain old-fashioned head cold can be. I know I can’t complain, it’s just a cold, but, bleh, I’m sick and tired of it all. I think I am finally getting better, and my brain is less congested than before. I can think again. Below is a piece I wrote in 2007, at a time when I was reviewing a lot of federal water projects. It still rings true today.
The Common Cold As if it wasn’t enough to be slowed down to a barely functioning level, with no help from kids and co-workers, but your voice gives you away by dripping with nasal tones, so that people on the other end of the phone start sniffling in sympathy. Your nose flows a waterfall, moving along braided streams of reddened skin to the mouth. The only way to control the flood is to go home and sleep with your head turned on the pillow, and a carefully engineered arrangement of Kleenexes on the downstream side of your nostril to act as levees and coffer dams to contain the flow. The Army Corps of Engineers should be that good.
Michelle Eames 