This author, who is on Pacific Coast Time, may sometimes show up later than when the post is published. That is a feature, not a bug. Other than that, site rulz rule.
So grab your cuppa, and join in!
A great deal has changed since Ogden Nash (1902-1971) was busily penning his amusing verses, and not all of it for the better. How much more civilized to have a doctor call on you when you are sick, instead of requiring you to drag your ailing carcass to the medico’s office, awaiting your turn in the examination room, meanwhile exposing your weakened system to the germs and viruses spewed out by all the others waiting and waiting in equal misery, seated far too close to you.
Nash has written an eloquent denunciation of his doctor’s pronouncement that he is merely suffering from the so-called common cold. It’s vintage Nash, and suits quite nicely my current state of mind.
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THE COMMON COLD
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by Ogden Nash
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Go hang yourself, you old M.D.!
You shall not sneer at me.
Pick up your hat and stethoscope,
Go wash your mouth with laundry soap;
I contemplate a joy exquisite
I'm not paying you for your visit.
I did not call you to be told
My malady is a common cold.
-:-
By pounding brow and swollen lip;
By fever's hot and scaly grip;
By those two red redundant eyes
That weep like woeful April skies;
By racking snuffle, snort, and sniff;
By handkerchief after handkerchief;
This cold you wave away as naught
Is the damnedest cold man ever caught!
-:-
Give ear, you scientific fossil!
Here is the genuine Cold Colossal;
The Cold of which researchers dream,
The Perfect Cold, the Cold Supreme.
This honored system humbly holds
The Super-Cold to end all colds;
The Cold Crusading for Democracy;
The Führer of the Streptococcracy.
-:-
Bacilli swarm within my portals
Such as were ne'er conceived by mortals,
But bred by scientists wise and hoary
In some Olympic laboratory;
Bacteria as large as mice,
With feet of fire and heads of ice
Who never interrupt for slumber
Their stamping elephantine rumba.
-:-
A common cold, gadzooks, forsooth!
Ah, yes. And Lincoln was jostled by Booth;
Don Juan was a budding gallant,
And Shakespeare's plays show signs of talent;
The Arctic winter is fairly coolish,
And your diagnosis is fairly foolish.
Oh what a derision history holds
For the man who belittled the Cold of Colds!
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G’Morning/Afternoon/Evening MOTlies!
If you are in good health, may it continue.
If you are not, may you be well again soon.