A Touch of the Coulier

October 2nd, 2003 Posted in Anecdotes, Blog Posts

As our one whole month of warm summer weather comes to a close here in Canada, we Canucks once again pull our jackets and mittens out of the closet, and steel ourselves for another 11 harsh months of winter. Many of us grab brooms and head out to the garage, to chase off any Eskimoes that might have made nests in the engines of our snowmobiles. The Prime Minister of Canada, Jean-Claude HockeyMoose, gives his yearly address on the state of Canada, and all five hundred of us crowd around the radio we all share to find out how much we made in exports this year (in 2002 we raked in $34.85! Dizzam!).

And, as with every year when the weather starts to get a little chilly, I spend a weekend walking around in shorts and a t-shirt like a moron and then inevitably catch a cold.

This year, sadly, has been no different. What has been different, however, is the potency of my cold—or to be more specific, the impotency. I think I caught it on Sunday, and I seem to’ve had it ever since—mild muscle ache, waves of fatigue, plugged-up sinuses, the usual—but only in a really, really subliminal sense. So far I’ve been able to spend most of the day not even noticing it, until about 3:00, at which point I start to slow down a little and feel a bit feverish.

In other words, I seem to have contracted the pussiest cold on the planet. It doesn’t get better. It doesn’t get worse. It just kind of hangs around and pisses you off—like the last guy to leave at a party, who won’t take the hint no matter how many showy yawning gestures you make.

What’s worse about all of this crap is that, while it sucks—I’ve felt too exhausted each night to get much of anything done, let alone go out with friends to drink and enjoy myself—it sucks in such a faggotty, small-scale way that it’s impossible to complain about it. I can’t even really say I have a cold, because if I did eventually someone would suggest taking a Tylenol or something, and I’d have to shamefacedly admit that, in fact, I don’t actually even feel sick enough to merit a Flintstones chewable vitamin. Because it’s not a cold, not really. It’s the Dave Coulier of viruses.

So: I propose that we in the English-speaking parts of the world that get these seasonal shifts and, therefore, catch seasonal colds, come up with a word for this sort of almost-but-not-really-a-cold. That way I can easily explain to people what I seem to have come down with, so they’ll understand why I can’t go out tonight, but also catch that it’s nothing remotely serious and that I’m not looking for sympathy or really feeling anything but slightly awful.

In honor of the simile I mentioned above, I propose we call it a “coulier”. For those of you out there who haven’t gained acquaintance with the French-speaking world, I envy you with a passion I can’t form words around. But also it’s pronounced “cool-yay.” I suppose if you wanted to pronounce it “Cool-ee-er”, it wouldnt be the first Anglicized mangling of a French word.

Either way, the important thing is that we agree on this now so I don’t look like an idiot when I mention it. If someone says “You wanna grab a beer after work?” and I say, “Naw, sorry—I’ve got a really irritating coulier I can’t seem to shake,” I want a knowing nod, not the surprised impression that I’m being tailed surreptitiously by an ex-sitcom star.