The Critical Mom's Cold

I do seem not to be able to get through Winter without at least one cold. I keep a dispenser of hand sanitizer in my office. Despite religious use of the stuff, I can't escape the coughs of my students, who insist on handing me their bacteria-laden term papers. Or my children, who get every cup of tea they request from me. And despite gallons of tea made with honey, fresh ginger, and lemon, plus my comfort drink, the laryngitis got so bad I couldn't talk at all (shouldn't have gone in to teach on Monday and Tuesday) so I went to the doctor who has prescribed a three-day antibiotic. I took one this morning and crawled back into bed and damn, but the stuff is already working! I'm coughing up the green stuff that refused to emerge before, despite all healthier remedies, including loads of hot steam. These are the consequences of a childhood spent practically teething on antibiotics: I just can't seem to master one of these really bad colds without them. At any rate, recovery would take weeks of lying in bed and who's got weeks? I wonder what Hillary Clinton would have done. If I know her, she'd have chowed down on the antibiotics and then, through an effort of extreme will, kept going long past the point when I would have been collapsing in bed. This kind of infection does separate the girls from the goddesses . . .