This week’s article might be a little hard to understand, because I have *cough*cough*cough*cough* a cough. I can’t get through one *cough*cough*COUGH*cough*COUGH* sentence without coughing. Even typing a sentence, apparently.
Though I suppose if I’m typing a *cough*cough*cough* sentence and I break into a coughing fit, I don’t actually have to type the words, “*cough*cough*cough*,” cough*cough*cough* as I do it. You’ll just know that I’m thinking it. That way, you don’t have to hear the actual coughing. Because as nice as we normally are to people who are sick, nobody has patience for someone who’s coughing within earshot. It’s like they don’t realize that it’s not worse for anybody than it is for the cougher himself. Unless you count the fact that the cougher himself is the one person in the room not worried about getting sick, because he’s already sick. He’s just worried about how is he going to cough forever like this, or what? Is this his life now? And for every cough that you hear, there were 25 more than he caught before they came out, which is why he’s vibrating violently the entire time, which annoys you as well.
My cough came in with a seasonal fever. The weather changed, and I got a cold -- the kind of cold were you get into bed and you’re freezing, so you put on an extra sweatshirt and heavy socks, and then over the course of the night you take off one thing per hour until you’re just lying on a damp bedsheet next to your pajamas, with one leg slung over the blanket. And then in the morning, you’re cold.
My cold usually goes away in a timely manner, but the throat thing could stick around for weeks afterward. My theory is that it’s because I’ve weakened my throat through years and years of going to mesivta and yelling at teenagers to be quiet already so I can yell grammar at them.
And before you ask, I am definitely drinking lots of tea, which is not helping either. People say, “Breathe in the steam until it’s not too hot to drink!” So I hold it under my chin, take a nice, deep breath, and I immediately have to put the cup down so I could launch into a coughing fit without a scalding hot cup of tea in my hand.
Why are we telling people with coughing problems to carry hot liquids? Who should carry hot liquids next? People who can’t stop sneezing? People who get nauseated on moon bounces?
I have the same issue with coughing while trying not to choke on the Ricola in my mouth that is clearly not working, yet I’ve gone through three bags this week alone and I don’t even like them. What is this flavor? What is “original herb”? And why does it have pointy edges?
I still go in to teach every day.
“Why don’t you stay home?” you ask. That’s what my students ask.
The reason I come in is that I tend to have throat things for weeks on end, and I can’t take 6 weeks off of yeshiva.
And before you get worried about my students,
- I do tell the bochurim up front that I’m not feeling well and that they should not sit up front.
- Many of them love sitting in the back anyway.
- It’s entirely likely that whatever I have, I caught from them.
- My students are very happy to get whatever I have so they can take days off later.
One thing that I have noticed, though, is that my coughing seems to be largely triggered by increased levels of stress. The more stressed I am, the longer and harder the coughing fit. For example, the stress of people piling in and bothering me with questions I can’t hear about trivial nonsense while I’m trying to cough.
This happens a lot in school. Particularly with students who’ve sat a safe distance from me the entire lesson walking up during worksheet time over and over to ask me if every answer they’ve written is correct.
I will tell you when I mark it. This is what marking is for.
“But why isn’t it correct?”
And my coughing gets worse. Yet they stand there waiting for me to finish coughing into my voice amplifier. And meanwhile, another student is walking up in the direction I’m coughing in.
“Well, is my answer correct? I wrote the same thing as him.”
The other stress that triggers my cough is being in a quiet room full of people. The entire time I’m alternating between trying not to cough and trying not to think about it, and for every minute I’m successful, I think, “Wow! I haven’t coughed in like a minute!” And that makes it worse. And then I graduate to silently coughing with my mouth closed, over and over, until I’ve ruptured enough blood vessels in my head, and then I quickly pop another Ricola.
This came up a lot at the open houses. I have a son who is starting mesivta next year, and apparently every yeshiva in existence decided to have open houses on the very same weekend, which is also one of the very same five weekends or so that I have a cough! And if you’re not at their open house, they know you’re at someone else’s.
You have to go to these open houses, because they otherwise don’t think that you’re serious about the yeshiva. Even though I’ve been to some of these very same ones before for our other sons who did not then get in. So we have to go to every single one, beginning with one that my wife told me to go to myself, because she had to be at work.
So I went to the first open house, which was a very elaborate program with several sessions and speeches, and my wife asked me, “So what did they say?” And I said, “I have no idea. I spent every speech trying not to cough.” But I was there. I signed in, and I’d taken a packet. Most of what these speeches say is in the packet, minus the part where the speaker tied the yeshiva into the parsha.
(If your yeshiva can’t be tied into the parsha, I am not interested in your yeshiva.)
And she asked, “Well, did you record it at least?”
And I said, “Sure!”
So I hand her my voice recorder, and she pushes play, and she basically hears me coughing the whole time. And unwrapping cough drops, and trying not to choke on them.
And the annoying thing is that I have this habit with sucking candies wherein I bite through them when I’m about 75% done, and I accidentally do that with cough drops also. And every time I do that around my wife, she says, “You’re wasting our cough drops,” because she knows she’s about to get the throat thing too. Because apparently, I breathe when I sleep, and sometimes it’s in her direction. Also she sat in the car with me the whole way to the second open house.
The second open house of the day was in fact for a yeshiva that we’d already been to an open house for a few years ago for a different son, but we had to show our faces, because we’d registered already, and if we didn’t grab our packets, they would know we didn’t show up. I spent that whole open house thinking that we could have just grabbed the packets and gone home. And coughing with my mouth closed. So I missed the whole speech about how this is the one yeshiva that prepares the boy for life, and how every student has unique qualities and strengths and they need to reach their full potential. And also the video about the same rabbi saying that same thing, intercut with all the boys saying that this is the best mesivta they’ve ever been to in their entire lives and they are still so close to their rebbeim even though they’ve been out of mesivta for several months already, interspersed with various rebbeim talking about things being the cornerstone of the curriculum and how the development and growth of each student is integral, and I think someone worked the word “striving” in there, and everything has a personal touch, interspersed with bochurim saying that they really feel like they’re all an extended family, and the rebbeim get to know each and every student on an individual level, because each student is unique, although slightly similar to their brother from a couple years ago sometimes.
So the big question now is how I’m going to deal with my brother’s aufruf next Shabbos. I have to stop coughing by then. Though I suppose I could just show up for Shacharis, throw a handful of Ricolas at my brother, and then go back to my host’s house to eat my little guest bag of minty lentils and pistachios.
I also very much want to be well so my father can ask me to give a speech that I don’t have time to write because I’m busy coughing all week so I can get up and project my voice without a mic and cough all over the room mere days before everyone present has to be at a chasunah.
Speaking of which, that’s enough sentences. I have to launch into a coughing fit or my head will explode.
Maybe I’ll go to the doctor next week. And by “next week,” I just mean “in next week’s article.” I already know what I did.
Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia, a monthly humor columnist, and has written six books, all published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send any questions, comments, or ideas to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
