Soothe Move

When I wake up with the beginnings of a sore throat in the middle of June, my first thought is: Uh-oh. Time to lock it all down, pop a few Zyrtec, make sure I’m all loaded up with DayQuil and groceries, and then put on a pair of sweat shorts and get cozy up on the couch to binge action movies. Because whether it’s the common cold or something worse, I know I’m about to be sick.

In the winter, the calculus changes.

Tickle in the throat in the morning? A few coughs? Some congestion? It could be a cold coming on. It could be something much worse. It could be the lingering effects of the last cold I had. Or maybe the cold I had two colds ago. (I don’t know about you, but I usually get a low-grade cold sometime in November, and then I just sort of cough at varying levels of intensity until spring.)

Some other potential contributing factors to that not-so-great feeling: I might’ve eaten too much salty food the day before. Or maybe I’m just kinda achy because I slipped on some ice and fell (a year and a half ago, but I’m middle-aged now, so that’s a thing that stays with me forever). Or maybe I didn’t exercise–because the average feels-like temperature is a number I can count on two hands, and it gets dark at about 4 in the afternoon–or I haven’t been drinking enough water.

Or maybe it’s some combination of all this stuff.

Maybe I didn’t exercise, so my body feels shitty, and I haven’t hydrated enough, compounding said shit feeling, and also I ate a bunch of salty quesabirria tacos last night, and drank a margarita, compounding that dehydration (and double-compounding the shitty feeling), all while coming off of one cold and catching the next and dealing with the lingering muscle issues resultant of a slip last winter.

Oh, also: the air. The air inside is terrible in winter. It’s dry and dusty. That could also be making my throat feel itchy, too.

The point I’m trying to make here: when you wake up feeling a little off in the winter, it’s difficult to tell why. What’s not difficult to tell is that the feeling sucks. Which is why you should have something to suck on. Like these Jakemans Honey Lemon Throat & Chest Lozenges.

Now, let me say this: these have an expiration date of 1/31/26. But the active ingredient, menthol, doesn’t curdle like milk. It just gets less effective (less of a cooling effect) over time (like a lot of medication). In other words, these will probably be nice throughout the winter, but if you find one in your car a few years from now, it might not do much.

And some might argue they don’t do much even at full-strength. But it’s nice to have something to coat your throat a little.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to just assume whatever unpleasantness I’m experiencing right now is something far more serious than winter malaise and cancel all my plans in order to lie on the couch and watch baking shows for the next four months. TTFN!