You know what you should do...

Disclaimer: I fully acknowledge that advice givers speak from the kindness of their hearts with the sole purpose of helping others through their expertise and wisdom. That said...

I have some sort of bug, a virus that is dwelling in my throat and making me sound like a sultry baritone. I am not congested. I am not sneezing, hacking, or sniffing. I generally feel fine. I merely sound like a dude.

Have you ever noticed how much advice you get when you sound like you might be sick? I’ve noticed advice givers a lot lately(particularly myself…I LOVE to give advice—I’m working on it). While advice about curing a virus usually makes me roll my eyes, I prefer the advice givers to the people who form a cross with their index fingers and scream “STAY AWAY” at me. However, that is another post for another day.

Since I lost my voice four days ago I have compiled a list of the spontaneous advice I’ve been given to cure me. 9 times out of 10 the advice giver begins his or her session with the following words:

You know what you should do…

• Emergen-C (people always swear by it)
• Gargle Cayenne pepper
• Put eucalyptus oil into a pot of boiling water and inhale for 20 minutes
• Drink tea (preferably a concoction of pickled ginger, cayenne pepper, tobacco sauce, vinegar, and black pepper)
• Increase your vitamin intake
• Wear two scarves (or 3 if you have a third)
• Gargle lime juice
• Netty pot (ugh)
• Stop talking (which, I admit, I agree with and failed to do over the weekend)
• Massage eucalyptus oil into your pressure points
• Put Vic’s vaporub under your nostrils and eyes—apparently it doesn’t work as well when it’s just on your chest

This is my list from the past four days. If anything else noteworthy is mentioned, I’ll be sure to update the list. As for now, I thought this was a good start.