Oh, Honey!

My husband is sick. It began five days ago with a cough and on the second day snowballed into a full force fever. On the third day, he was able to sit up after a couple of hours, but like a story book convalescent, he faded back into the covers.

The fourth day was a millimeter better. He got dressed – always a plus – and ate a little, but he mostly sat in his club chair stretched flat, moaning at the ceiling. We belong to Costco, so we have, in bulk, a variety of cold remedies of which he is partaking. I’ve made a point of sleeping in The Boy's bed (The Boy now being 32 and sleeping in his own apartment across the country) far away from the contagion.

But Friday evening, well, Friday evening I felt just the beginning of a tickle in the back of my throat. That coupled with two diet cokes at lunch saw me bolt upright, mind a-scampering at, argh!, 1:30 in the morning.

Disheartening in a way, but, ah, here's an opportunity. The time was ripe to try a home remedy I’ve long wondered about.  Lore tells us that a tot of rum with a teaspoon of warm honey is therapy for a cough.  Why, yes, I do happen to have some dark Barbados rum. It's been sitting in the cabinet since we went to the Caribbean in 2002 waiting for a moment such as this. I pour a jigger -- may as well use a pretty glass -- and mix in heated, raw honey. Oh, ho, ho! The honey is sweetness itself, and supposedly coats the throat and soothes the cough. The rum coats the throat, too, and the gullet and the innards and, frankly, the brain with a nice blanket of deadened response. 

The taste is a blend of syrupy sunlight and earthy darkness. I feel certain Hades plied Persephone with this combination in his underground lair; heck, I'm sure it's why she was willing to stay there six months of the year. I've finished the one, and I'm happy to hang around here for a long time. Oh, wait, I live here.

I am not coughing. I am not coughing!  It works! Look, Ma, no hands!  It works!

Finding that a folk method is effective always flabbergasts me. It is remarkable that our forbearers, even without labs and computers and fancy medical equipment, were still such smarty pants.  

Now will this concoction really help me get better? Let us just say that I have my doubts. Does it really help me feel better? Oh, honey, yes it does!