Socked by a cough
This is going to be a bit unpleasant, but anyway.
I came downstairs this morning to find a dark sock on the living room floor. I don’t wear socks.
Bending to pick it up, I found it was soaking wet, yuck, and a bit warm. As I dropped it and headed to the kitchen to get a pair of tongs to pick it up without having to touch it again, I looked down to find my dog cowering in the corner in that way that says, I did it. I couldn’t help it.
No other human lives in this house and whole weeks go by without another person setting a socked foot in here. It’s been weeks since the last time my children came and brought their laundry, and my daughter’s feet are way bigger than that wet sock.
“What did you do?” I asked Smoothie and he dropped his little head in shame.
He apparently had eaten a sock and then (again, sorry) coughed it back up.
I’m going to give him a pass because I think it was a sympathy cough. For the past week, I’ve had a hacking cough that’s rattled the rafters here and probably inspired Smoothie to do this weird sock-ingestion thing.
It began as a bit of a cold last Saturday. COVID tests were negative and I never had a fever, but eventually the bug settled in my upper windpipe and set to tickling. I’m quiet during the day but at night – geez, the coughing spells. I’ve had a flu shot, so I don’t think that’s what this is. But I’ve heard of colleagues and friends struggling with the cough that hangs around way past its expiration date.
Have a cough that wakes and keeps you up, and you go looking around the pharmacy for relief. Remember cough drops? When I was a kid, my mother would hand me one of the cherry kind when I had a cough in church, but those are really nothing but Lifesavers in a different box. I bought some honey and menthol ones this time and they don’t really work. Likewise, cough syrup bought over the counter is ineffective, too. What you need for a cough is codeine and doctors have to prescribe that now, and they won’t.
The last time I had a sore throat, I went googling for home remedies and landed on marshmallows. And it works. I’d eat one marshmallow an hour and my throat pain was gone – probably something about the goo that holds the marshmallow together coating the throat.
And if it worked for my throat maybe that would help my cough. And you know what? It does, sort of. I don’t like marshmallows unless they’re stale, but in this case, I can eat one airy one per hour. I’ve been keeping a few on my bedside table.
I think I’ve turned the corner on whatever this bug is. I only got up coughing once last night, and the night before it was three times.
Now, about that wet sock. There are times I wish dogs could talk, because maybe Smoothie could clear up a bit of this mystery. Where the heck did he get the sock? Mom and Dad: Smoothie stayed with you after my surgery. Are you missing a sock? It was dark green with a yellow stripe at the top.
And maybe most important, did my coughing upset him so much that he ate a sock? Did it hurt to cough it back up?
If so, marshmallows work. One for me, one for Smoothie.
Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.