You know what I hate about having a cold? I mean, what I hate about having a cold aside from the actual having of the cold? I hate having to tell people that I have a cold.

It never does justice to exactly how crap you’re feeling when you tell people that you have a cold. You hurt all over. Your chest is overflowing with gunk. Your nasal passages have betrayed you to the enemy and have gone into mucous production like suddenly there’s a world shortage. In short, you feel like shit in a dozen different ways, every one of which would be worth complaining about on its own, but combined they leave you just capable of making an annoying whine that only dogs and people who can’t find a reason to be somewhere else - anywhere else - can hear.

***

And you know what else I hate about colds? I hate that when you have one you can potter along on your own in a ’someone kill me now’ kind of way, but the moment you come into contact with a person who might be convinced to offer you a little sympathy, suddenly your cold feels about 73 times worse and you’re dying and feverishly making out your will and threatening to come back to haunt the meat cupboard [1], just to make sure that everyone knows you’re sick.

And you know what I REALLY hate about having a cold? The fact that you still have to come to work, and you are medicated out. of. your. mind. and you’re freaking out on the pretty colours on your monitor and trying to suck your own elbows [2]. And I swear there was an hour earlier today during which I was convinced I was in an episode from the original Star Trek series and I have this horrible feeling that all the Klingons I was vaporising will turn out to have been project files that I’m seriously going to need sometime soon.

I hate that about colds.

Cough.

Someone kill me now.