Cold

‘Getting cold’ is certainly an irritating state of affair. It can make life miserable. The problem in having cold is that everyone thinks that it is a minor sickness and one can’t complain about it, if you do then you will be accused of making mountain out of molehill.

I have cold, at this time of uncomfortable existence, a story come to the mind.

Once a young lady was suffering from severe cold and went to the doctor for treatment. The doctor too prescribed some medicine. The lady faithfully consumed the bitter medicine, but nothing was improving, waited for a day or two, and there was no improvement, things were going from bad to worse.

Suffering turned into anger and she went to the doctor and shouted at him, “Are you a real doctor? The medicine you gave me was absolutely useless. Did you prescribe medicine for cure the cold or to increase it? You should be ashamed of calling yourself as a doctor. Better return the medical college and study properly.”

The doctor remained quiet, finally he told her, “Young lady, what you should do is: go home and take bath in cold water, and without drying yourself go to the bed room and switch on AC, keep it at maximum cool, switch on the fan too if you have one in the bed room. Remain in that condition for an hour.”

The lady was perplexed hearing the new prescription and said to the doctor, “Will it cure me of cold?”

The doctor answered, “No, but you will get pneumonia and I know how to cure pneumonia.”

As the old saying goes; if you take medicine you get cured of cold in seven days, if you don’t take medicine it takes one week. ‘Getting cold’ is a time of grace, it teaches us to be patient. And it offers a valid and convincing reason for drinking brandy.