A Coughing Bout for the Ages

My roommate doesn’t realize why he’s coughing. It's been going on for the last two months now and he honestly believes he’s sick. In fact, he's coughing because he leaves the windows open all the time and the cold air is irritating his throat. He likes the room really cold, and he goes beyond the rational means of getting it to a chilly temperature by letting an absurd amount of cold air flurry in constantly and especially during the night. So just to be clear, that’s the real reason.

Funny story. He can’t figure this out. Not a bright guy to begin with but there are certain levels of ineptitude that cause you to scoot back a little and observe. He’s had a sore throat and a lingering cough now for a full two months, and he hasn’t got a clue why. He thinks something's wrong with him. So over these last two months I have watched this ultimate roommate transform his entire lifestyle to cater to solving the mysterious illness with which he’s been stricken. First he began drinking orange juice, which I laughed at gloriously. Still trying to figure that one out, but I assume the idea was to pump up the Vitamin C levels. I watched on as this progressed to straight vitamin intake. Would his immune system fight back!? No. The coughs continued. Something was clearly still wrong. He moved on to drinking all of his fluids exclusively from a Brita Filter. Obviously his cough was originating from water-bred bacteria that could be trapped by his new filter, and had absolutely nothing to do with the 10 degree gusts of wind that whipped around the room in the middle of the night.

Dammit where's my Brita?

Needless to say, the filter defense did nothing to cure his now epic coughing. So my roommate began to change the way he slept. Perhaps he wasn’t getting enough sleep. Eureka! So he bought a blindfold and earplugs. The guy was steps away from purchasing a plastic bubble habitat. My favorite moment was when he asked me to kindly remove a pumpkin I had bought from the room because he felt it was “breeding mold. Cause I’m allergic to that, and I’ve been coughing a lot.”

So close...

So what the hell, Joey. Why didn’t you tell the guy it was the window that was causing him to cough? A very well-thought question. Well, sometimes you need to make decisions in life. I was forced to decide whether or not the situation could end up paying off in the end. Could this guy’s coughing bring positive results? See, now that doesn’t sound so bad. It sounds more like a business decision that way. It’s optimistic thinking.

Besides, I don’t like him.