What a Common Cold is

Well well well, no world of warcraft for me today, so I might as well write a little blog, do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight... ahem.. got carried away there.

Right. I couldn't sleep last night and thought up this little piece of philosophical fiction. It sounded better in my head at four in the morning. Proceed at your own risk.


Romantic Love. Yes, the touchy heartfelt subject of the moment. What's with it?!
It irritates me that love is so dramatic yet it's the most trivial thing about. You never expect love, it just happens; once it happens, you think it will never go away and it does.

Common Cold. It's so dramatic, it knocks you out for a few days, you think you'll never walk again, then a few days later it's gone as if it's never been.

Both have been around for centuries. Everyone's had both at some time or another. Often at the same time.

People have written books above love. The heartwrenching literary works of prose and poetry. Romeo and Juliet. Desdemona and Othello. Dharma and Greg. People putting themselves through happiness and desire, misery and heartbreak, often not realising the motions they're going through. Flirt a little, get to know the person, go out, make out, get closer, get comfortable, make a commitment, get tired, break up, take time off, chill, feel the longing, get back together, cheat, lie, cry, the list goes on, doesn't it? We all dance this waltz of love, knowing the pas off by heart and following the rhythm with perfect precision.

A common cold. Centuries of medical advancement, we can beat small pox and bubonic plague, implant silicone and collagen into various human parts without leaving a scar, make semi-cyborgs of people, and we still cannot get rid of the stupid cold!
Goddam, get off your whitie ass and invent a cure!

But the most tragic thing of all is how trivial these both things are.

You get inflicted with a cold, you're out of action, you feel like crap, you stay awake all night coughing up a lung or two (actually that's exactly what brought on this lyrical waxing), you don't want to leave the bed, but it's better during the day when you've got something to do or someone to chat with.
A few days later you realise you're feeling fine and it's like the cold has never visited you at all, you forget how much of a pain it was, and act all surprised when, in a few months time, you catch a new one.

You get a healthy doze of a heartbreak, you're out of action, you feel like crap, you stay awake all night thinking up all the various possibilities and could have beens, you don't want to leave the bed, but it's easier during the day when you've got something to do or someone to chat with.
After some period of time, you realise you're feeling fine and it's like you were not ever in pain to start with, you meet someone new, get swept off your feet, and forget all the misery you went through not that long ago.

Hang on, stop right there, I'm repeating myself! You don't say.

You'd think all the clever people of the world would invent something more useful than electricity and eradicate these two evils of civilisation. The world would be a newly invented ray of sunshine. Ok, maybe not.

But you know, apparently sometimes people do break out of the waltz and dance a jig instead. I hear it's good.

This simile was brought to you by the words Dimetapp and Rhinovirus.