The Hits: How do you banish the winter ills and chills?

The Hits DJ Adam Green.

Banish winter ills and chills, the pamphlet before me read, as the now-familiar feeling of an imminent cold started to gather in the back of my throat and top of my nostrils.

"What, by getting rid of the kids for the winter?" I thought solemnly to myself. As much as I love them, three extra immune systems need to work with the utmost efficiency to keep our house cold-free.

Break down the barriers of just one of those tiny humans and the cold gallops through the household with the pace of a racehorse, hell-bent on infecting us all.

But is cough medicine actually medicine? Once the truly lung-rattling stage of an illness starts to grow, it seems not even a regular dose of the $18.99 bottle of cherry syrup can stop the hacking and provide relief.

"Have you tried a spoonful of honey?" a helpful friend might ask.

"Yes." the answer. It soothed for a grand total of 32 seconds before the internal itch started again and up welled another burst of virus-laden air.

"What about putting onions in your socks?" asks another.

My wife already tolerates my snoring and now my coughing - add in some oniony feet and I think there are probably good grounds for divorce.

The other sickness stepping stone in this post-pandemic world is that the dregs of a cough might last five to seven days after you mostly feel better.

But let a couple of masky raspys out in the corner of the office and you may as well have brought in a bag of rotten fishheads.

Like a workplace leper, you'll be put to task in the furthest corners of the room, with perhaps a box of Rat tests flung from the other side.

"It's not Covid, I'm recovering from a cold!" you say meekly from your corner of banishment. No one believes you.

"You smell like you've got onions in your socks," Sharon from accounts adds. You remind yourself that shoes apparently will not mask the smell of onions, and also that sock onions don't work.

Alas, it doesn't seem like there's really anything that will banish the winter ills and chills once they've taken hold. I guess the only thing left to do is to protect myself the best way I can. Kids, you're off to your uncle's house for winter!