Men Cold vs Women Cold

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We are both sick, nothing dramatic, it’s just a cold but this one is a tough one. It seems it’s going around and everybody has a hard time with it. It lingers and it’s hard to shake it off.

COVID tests were negative, flu tests as well (I didn’t even know there was such a thing).

So it’s a cold? Yep and a good one! Head cold they say and I suppose that’s correct because my brain somehow disappeared. It’s hidden behind a wall of stuffiness and puffiness. I can’t think straight, can’t hold a thought and my eyes are watering the way they do when I watch sad animal movies.

My ears are clogged, and I have now selective hearing as well. I have turned into a mucus factory, and the way it looks, I might break all the records -if there ever was one.

“We just bought tissues,” my better half informed me when he noticed I had put them on the grocery list, at the same time blowing his nose like an elephant, which he (and I) now seem to do every ten minutes.

“Yeah, so?” I replied and pointed at our trashcan and he nodded. Yes, we needed more tissues and we added Kleenex boxes to our grocery order.

We try not to spread the joy and germs too much. Groceries get delivered, we like it this way. Ever since the COVID lockdown, we let others shop for us, which has saved us a ton of money. No more store-manipulated impulse buys, nope we have a list and a stranger does our job. The tip at the end is well deserved, still so much cheaper and more efficient. We can work, while our grocery shopping is done for us.

But that’s not what I wanted to write about (I think) where was I? Oh, yes, the cold.

My husband, the wonderful unromantic Klotz I am happily married to. The man I love so dearly, who made it through heart surgery and shoulder surgery with ease, who didn’t even blink when he had testicular surgery and a cancer scare, came home sniffling right before my birthday.

I am a good wife, I am a kind person, I am fearless, I am a tough cookie, I am a trooper and I am mostly in a good mood, yet when he starts sniffling, I prepare myself for the worst and feel like running away -like hiding somewhere. Wife swap? Forget about it, I need a husband swap for about two weeks. Take him, keep him, bring him back when he is over the cold.

The reasonable part of me wants to say not all men are like this, but experience has proven me right. All men are like this and we the women, the wives, the mothers, the sisters, the girlfriends, the caretakers, we all put up with it.

Give it a try and say “My husband has a cold,” in a room full of females and you will get more compassion and empathy than you could have ever imagined. They all know. They all have lived through it -multiple times. They know what you are talking about.

It’s a popular theory that men get sicker, or at least act sicker, when they get a cold or the flu, while women, like warriors, go on with work, childcare, and life.

It’s almost comical.

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So if I haven’t commented on your blog, it’s because I am busy making chicken noodle soup and ordering tissues and I am taking care of a man-baby.

Stay healthy!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!