I had a sore throat Sunday night - I had marked it up to irritation from second hand cigarette smoke from Barona's on Friday... and then it got progressively worse on Monday.

On Tuesday, being the arrogant young male that I am, I pridefully boasted that I was going to defeat this bug with "alternative Western medicine": Coca-Cola, potato chips, Papa Johns pizza, and Robitussin.

Wednesday comes around ... and FAIL. What was just a tickle in my throat has become a full-blown cold. Now, with the Vegas trip with some coworkers coming up this weekend, I decided to play it safe by switching to more conventional "medicine" that I picked up from CVS:

(Everybody knows Mrs. Field's cookies are the perfect medicine!)

As I was checking out, the cashier at CVS (an older gentleman with a thick foreign accent) goes: "Oh no no no... that's not how you cure a cold! I always do hot tea and Brawny."

Wait, what? Brawny? That really creepy lumberjack guy's smile flashed in my mind. I kind of looked at him quizzically. He seemed to understand that the accent was a barrier to explaining to me the genius of his idea. He took the back of the receipt and wrote down his secret recipe for curing all colds:

Brandy! Apparently if I take this concoction, I will "sweat out the illness." Right on, brother.

Fortunately, I have exactly one of those ingredients at my place (yes, the alcohol).

If this cold doesn't get better tomorrow, I will resort to the brandy treatment and see what happens.