Got a little cold coming on? With a tickle in your throat? That teases you into a cough, or two, or three? Now take that tickle to a public place – a group dinner you couldn’t get out of. You have one thing on your mind, suppress the urge to cough; resist the tickle.
The activity around you is a blur. You sip water to kill it, but the tickle makes its presence known. You do a small, “Ahem,” to quiet it down. You’re okay for a minute, but you have to stay focused on the cough bully lying in wait in your throat. He’s in a recliner; his hands are behind his head, as though sunning himself on the beach, thinking, “I’ll wait, and get him when everyone’s eyes are focused on him.”
Been there? Done that? Maybe, in the dentist’s chair? The barber or hairdresser’s chair? Or, in any up close and personal situation. Like church. The movies. Or, worst of all, on a crowded airplane. It’s like that prom pimple that pops out on the end of your nose. Or, that canker blister on your lip, before a first date. Add the two together and throw in a bad hair day and you have the Triple Dipple Bully of Cruelty.
I can think of another element to add while at dinner with a cough bully. The ice cream headache. Somehow you make it through the main course. Without too many instances when you couldn’t keep the menace at bay. You order a dish of ice cream, in hopes to soothe the monster. But you eat it too fast, and a stabbing pain strikes your forehead and temple: the dreaded ice cream headache.
It distracts your attention from the tickle in your throat and now you are wincing in pain and coughing at the same time. All is lost!
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