If you're old enough, you'll remember when aspirin used to come in glass bottles. And inside each glass bottle, right at the top, with a wad of cotton wool. I guess they put that in there to stop the pills rattling around, getting broken in transit or somesuch. I always wondered about the person who used to put those wads of cotton wool into aspirin bottles. What was their life like? Was their job a metaphor for their life? Did they like to keep things and people safe? Or were they softly numbed to life's inequities, thanks to years of contact with aspirin. Whoever that person was, I hope they'd found gainful employment since aspirin stopped being sold in bottles.
Right now, the inside of my head feels like it's stuffed with cotton wool. Fuzzy, muddled, not hearing that well. Got a sore, dry throat, my noses keeps running and I'm taking all manner of remedies to stop my malady getting worse. Right now, I can't afford to be sick. I've no shortage of work to do, and from tomorrow night I'll be appearing in three performances of the Neil Simon play Jake's Women. That requires me to be on stage for at least two hours, remembering every word of a hundred play script and playing my part to the best of my abilities. So getting a head cold? Not on my To Do list. Feck it.
2 comments:
David -
Sounds like "convention lurgy" to me - a combination of travelling, late nights, meeting a multitude of people and shaking numerous hands. I've found that the best way to avoid this illness ( which is no help for you now but may come in useful next time) is to go for the prevention - not the cure. A few days before the con start taking the Airborne tablets (these boost up your immune system both for the con and against the numerous small contagions accumulated in the plane) then, whilst at the con, your constant companion should be a small bottle of liquid hand sanitizer. I'm not saying that the people you meet are going to be dirty and diseased - they'll most probably be very pleasant and perfumed - but at a con you get to shake a lot of hands.Just don't use the hand sanitizer in front of the person you've just shaken hands with! (Also - during breakfast for the duration of the convention - take another Airborne tablet). I assure you, I don't have some kind of cleanliness disorder. These approaches always seem to fend off the most virile of "con lurgies" and leave you feeling a lot better than if you hadn't taken the precautions.
All the best,
"Doctor" Perkins
www.mikeperkinsart.com
I always thought the cotton wool was in there to absorb moisture from the air to stop the tablets going manky as it was less toxic than silica gel.
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