The Old Broke Rancher Catches Cold

There was a stretch, from about 1984 to 1987, when I didn't get a single cold. I don't remember what I did during that time to get so healthy. I know I wasn't eating a lot of apples at the time; I probably did have a Miller High Life or three a day, but that probably doesn't keep the doctor away as successfully. Whatever it was, I sailed through life blissfully healthy, unaware how lucky I was.

As I write this, I envy that past self. Not only was he stronger, better-looking, and, let's face it, possessed of all his faculties, but he also didn't have this cold.

As I write this, I have what feels like the cold to end all colds. This cold is to colds as WW2 was to wars; it's the big one. Nothing dents this thing. Over the last week I've taken enough Zycam, Robitussin, and Nyquil, and every combination thereof, to see colors undiscovered since the late sixties, but still the cold lingers.

I type this half-heartedly from under a big blanket, propped up on a series of pillows against which I toss and turn, trying to find a comfortable position that allows me to both type half-heartedly into my laptop while also watching TV. I'm ashamed to admit that I'm watching a reality show about people meeting and dating on an island. I don't like the show; I'm not really interested in it, although I'm beginning to think that maybe some of the contestants are in it for the wrong reasons.

No, I'd rather be watching the Grit Channel ("Television with Backbone"), which broadcasts old Western movies and TV shows 24/7. There are more cowboys on that channel than have ever lived in the history of the world. If you turn on Grit and see someone without a hat or a bonnet, you're looking at a horse.

I long for Grit Channel, and to be free of this program, on which two blond women are currently arguing over which one deserves a date with a disinterested-looking tattooed man. But at the moment, the remote control has fallen off the couch and one of the dogs has kicked it under the table, where it cannot possibly be reached. Also, I have a looming deadline for the Fall issue article (which I've, well, procrastinated on a little) by the end of this week, only a few days away—and I need a good idea quickly.

But it is difficult to come up with good ideas through a particularly soupy cloud of brain fog. Reality television? Kleenexes? Uh... how difficult it is to put on underwear?

You ever have that feeling, when you've been sick for a few days, where you can't even really remember what it was like to feel well? At the moment, I feel like a jack-o'-lantern full of pecan pie, and I can't remember a time when that ever wasn't the case, even though there is evidence in the form of photographs and diary entries.

Still, the chores have to be done, so this morning I set out to feed the cows with pockets mashed full of tissues. I honked into fistfuls of Kleenexes like a lovelorn goose. The cattle, startled, tried their best to avoid me. As have, frankly, the rest of my family, who I notice have sped off to school and work with special relish this week.

But still, there's the matter of what to write about this issue. I have as many as four to five devoted readers who will be very disappointed if they open up the Fall issue and find it missing the Old Broke Rancher's incisive, uh... commentary on... uh... which is to say to listen to the Old Broke Rancher complain about... uh...

The Old Broke Rancher on ketchup? The Old Broke Rancher on armchairs versus couches? The Old Broke Rancher (I'm looking around the room now, like the end of The Usual Suspects, trying to find anything to make into a story) on pillows, on cuckoo clocks. The Old Broke Rancher investigates sneezing. The Old Broke Rancher takes a nap? The Old Broke Rancher wishes he had the energy to make soup.

Instead, for lunch I had two slices of Velveeta and the last third of a can of golden sweet corn, whole kernel. For dinner, there's a several-year-old bag of instant pancake batter in the back of the pantry that I'm planning to take to the griddle, open, sigh, and then close and put back.

I really need to come up with ideas, I remind myself, so what I do is I open up my phone and scroll for subjects. The usual suspects are all there: the nasty mire of politics, the whirling maelstrom of the news. Things, as it turned out, had gotten even worse than the last time I looked, ten minutes ago. Before long, I am lining up rows and rows of little pixelated farm animals in a cell phone game called "Moo Stack 2," and though I am doing well enough to get to Level 12 without even having buy any Moo Bucks, I'm still no closer to an idea about what to write. My thumbs, however, do start to get a little exhausted from my exertions.

Before long I focus my dwindling attention on the television, on which a small gaggle of women is now arguing with a group of men in a hot tub. My eyes glance to the coffee table, with the remote hidden deep underneath, and then to the laptop, with its blizzard of white space needing to be filled.

Then it hits me like slap of cold, wet Kleenex right in the face: what if I write about this here, right now? What it feels like to get sick? Getting a cold feels universal, right? There must be plenty about it that could be funny if humorously rendered! Why, I could write about things everyone understands, like nasal congestion and eating too much soup! And if I could only reach that damn remote, I could switch to Grit Channel, and then maybe I could summon the energy I need to really flesh out the article. It could even be funny, I think for a moment, before my better instincts take over. No, that'd be awful. Plus I don't want to get up and lift up the coffee table to get the remote.

Ah hell, I'll write the column tomorrow. I'm sure I'll have a better idea by then.