To Ease a Cold

The parents of my first Saturday student are both doctors.  Medical doctors.  The dad was in this morning, and noticed (a bit hard not to, really) that I have a cold.  The following advice came, then, from a doctor.  I found it rather odd, which was why I have repeated that fact.

"You have Coke?" he asked.  With my ears a bit funny, I thought I must have misheard.  I had not.  "You get a can of Coke", he said, "you warm it up and put in some garlic.  Makes you feel better".  "As in - real Coke?  The fizzy brown soft drink?" - I still didn't believe him.  "Yep.  You heat it so it not fizzy.  The garlic, it good for antibacterial.  The caffeine, it perk you up.  Trust me, if you go chemist in place like India, China, this what they give you".  Um... I asked if it was just for warm caffeine, would a coffee do - he grudgingly gave it the okay but really seemed to favour the soft drink option. 

I couldn't bring myself to buy any soft drink, on doctor's orders or not.  I bought some antihistamine (which doesn't seem to have had any effect), and did the garlic-caffeine thing in the afternoon, with a tiny bit of honey as well.  The first whiff made me not want to drink it.  Appetising.  I tried to ignore the 'aroma' and downed the first mouthful, and it was not as bad as feared.  The honey was the saving grace, really.  By the last few mouthfuls I was so relieved.  I'm not sure it really did what it was supposed to do (maybe he was right, and fizzy brown soft drink really is the way to go) but I didn't die either.  And I did have enough energy to get through the day with only a little nap.  Alternating blocked and runny, sneezy nose, at the tail end of a mariachi gig, resulted in very little sleep last night. 

So, I've tried this.  The childhood remedy was a lemon-ginger-garlic-hot water horror, which always made me rethink if I was really sick.  I might give both options a go tomorrow.