For Noses About to Run, I Salute You (M/F, Cold Obs)

[GhostLily342]

I recently posted a lengthy series of obs featuring my wife and a savage head cold that she caught while we were visiting family last week. By no surprise whatsoever, this cold has now moved on to its next adventure: me.

In a similar fashion to the wife obs, I’ll describe all that I must via narration, but I’m much more keen on describing these events through dialogue, so there’ll be some of that too

Day One: The first signs of the cold struck me on the drive home from the city, and came in their usual form. I typically don’t sneeze very much at all when I have a cold, but what I get instead is a perpetually runny nose (I consider this a fair trade-off, actually).

Sure enough, not long after we left the city, I felt a thin, watery trickle begin sliding toward the inner tip of my nose. I sniffled for a few moments, and when this grew old I turned to my wife in the passenger seat before she fell asleep, as the only tube of travel tissues sat in the compartment of her door.

“Hey honey, could you hand me a tissue please?”

“Sure. You feeling okay?”

“Yeah, *snnfff* I think I’m alright.”

“You’re probably catching what I have.”

“I dunno, it could just be allergies [LIES!]”

I wound up having to treasure this single tissue, seeing as my wife soon went comatose on me for the remainder of the trip. I would’ve hated to wake her up, since once we got home she was going to have to go in and work a night shift, so instead I spent the drive swiping and grasping my nose with this tissue. It really wasn’t that bad, as my nose hadn’t really gone to work on this cold yet.

We arrived at home some time later, my wife went to work, and I called it a night early. But this was just the beginning…

Day Two: There really wasn’t much of a drastic change in the progress of my cold. I logged a couple of sneezes and a handful of false starts, and my nose was really more dry that anything.

My wife was still suffering a bit, though. By this point she was getting sick and tired of blowing her nose, but she was left with little choice, as there remained a residual runniness and/or stuffiness in her every breath.

We had our usual appointment with our therapist that night, whom we love, by the way. My wife and I sat side by side on our usual couch in out therapist’s (let’s call her “T”) office, and she was well into recounting her week when I noticed that her sniffles were becoming more and more frequent. Luckily for us, on either side of this couch there sits an end table with a box of Kleenex on it. T must’ve noticed the sniffles from my wife after a short while.

“Are-are you okay? Do you need to take a break?”

“No, no *snnfff* I’m sorry, my cold’s just acting up.”

She then pulled a tissue from the box next to her and blew her nose with her characteristic foghorn-like sound.

“SHHHRRRRNK! SHRRNK! Ew, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

As the session continued, so did my baby’s sniffling, incidentally. Several more times she reached over for tissues and blew her nose, until T realized that my wife had nowhere to put her soiled tissues. She then grabbed her small trash can from beside her desk and set it down in front of my wife.

“There, that’s a bit more accessible, isn’t it?”

“Gosh, thank you so much, I swear, this cold…”

Several more tissues yet were added to the bin by the end of our session. I just thought this particular event was really cute!

Day Three: Here’s where it really got bad for me. From the moment I woke up, my nose was like a faucet, gushing clear, watery fluid at every turn. I had already been hauling a box of tissues around the house with me, and now those tissues were being put to very good use.

What made things even more interesting was the fact that my wife wanted us to run some errands in town. Thinking that this meant two or three quick stops, I grabbed only one 10-count pack of Kleenex and put it in my jacket. Two of them were used to blow my miserably drippy nose on the drive out…

…that pack was gone before our first stop was even complete.

We went to the grocery store first. I basically followed her around the aisles, hitching from false starts, sniffling, and blowing my nose ceaselessly. By the time we had reached the dairy aisle, I was blowing into my last tissue. And did my nose care? Nope. Less than two minutes later, my nose was flooding yet again.

“*snnnff* Ugh, honey, do you have any tissues in your purse?”

“Honestly, if I do, they’re probably all used.”

“Oh, *snnff* that-that’s okay.”

I suppose I was lucky, in a way to have been stashing all of my used tissues in my jacket pocket. Having few alternatives, I resorted to reusing these largely soaked tissues. In order to stem the flow from my nose.

When we returned to the car, I immediately reached into the center console for the remnants of a 70-count tissue packet that my wife had bought several days ago to deal with her cold. Pulling two tissues out of the package, I blew my nose and shoved the remainder of the package in my jacket pocket.

“SHHHHHHSHSHSHH…Hey, I’m keeping these.”

“Good idea.”

Over the course of our next few stops, my nose and I set to work decimating this pack of tissues. Since these were not of the greatest quality (thin, rough, half the size of the average Kleenex, etc.), I usually required two tissues to blow my nose if I didn’t want a mess. Every time I blew I had about a 3-5 minute reprieve before my nose filled up again.

After an hour or so of this abuse, my poor nose was getting red and raw, and my wife started to notice.

“Aww baby, your nose is so red. I’m sorry you don’t feel well. I should be done in a little bit.”

“No, it’s really okay. My head feels fine now but, ugh, it’s just my nose, it won’t stop running.”

While we were in the car on our way home, my wife got a call from a friend, who invited her over to watch a movie. This happened to be a mutual friend of ours, and one that wanted me to come over as well, but by that time I really wasn’t feeling up to it. Surprised?

“You sure you don’t want to go with me?”

“Yeah, I don’t think I’d be much fun with my nose dripping everywhere.”

“Okay, well, put on some comfy clothes and lay down on the couch.”

Even after my wife left for her movie night, my condition showed no improvement; still the constant sniffles, and the nose blowing every few minutes.

I still tried to be somewhat productive by washing and folding some laundry in the bedroom, where we keep the second of two boxes of tissues in the house. Let’s just say I gave that box its due attention…

Later in the evening, my wife texted to check in on me. I tried to use emojis in order to effectively convey my pathetic-ness.

After the movie, she returned home to find me on the couch with a trusty box of tissues on the coffee table.

“Hey babe, how’s your nose?”

“Ugh, still runny and sore.”

“Oh honey…huh, you haven’t been through nearly as many tissues as I thought you had.”

“Whaddaya mean?”

“By the way your text sounded it seemed like you’d been through a whole box.”

“Yeah…I was using the box in the bedroom while I was folding laundry.”

“Ohhh, I see.”

She then sat down next to me, and we cuddled while catching up on some of our shows on Hulu. I was still blowing my nose every so often, and by this point, my nose was not just red, and not just sore; it was burning. It hurt even when I wasn’t blowing! I winced as I delicately massaged my nostrils with my fingertips, and it wasn’t long before my dear wife picked up on it.

“Poor baby, your nose really hurts doesn’t it?”

“Ughhh, I don’t even want to blow it anymore. You can’t make me.”

“You need to.”

“Nope.”

“Why don’t you just wipe it, instead of blowing it?”

“Ngh, I think it’ll hurt one way or the other…SHHHHHHHHSHSH!”

“You know what might feel good? Take a cool, wet washcloth and hold it to your nose.”

“You-*snnff* you sure?”

“Just try it.”

I did. I went to the bathroom, wet a washcloth with the coldest water I could manage, and wrung it out well. Turns out, that actually did help a lot with the burning sensation.

“Better?”

“Yeah, that actually feels really good.”

The washcloth idea wound up achieving a double objective: it soothed my aching nose, and provided a softer alternative to tissues when it came to wiping it.

When my wife fell asleep against me on the couch, I suggested that we go to bed. After I laid down, my wife retrieved a bottle of lotion from our bathroom.

“Here, let me rub some of this on your nose. I bet it’ll help.”

“Oh-okay.”

She began gently applying a small amount of lotion to each nostril, and while it stung a bit at first, I do think it helped in the long run. With the scent of cranberry and holly on either side of my nose, I fell dead asleep.

By now, this cold is getting a bit better. Should any further obs of note occur, I’ll be sure to add them!

[Arty]

This is cute. The way you both care for each other. I hope you both feel better.

[GhostLily342]

This is cute. The way you both care for each other. I hope you both feel better.

Thank you! I'm feeling a bit better, but still kinda stuffy. My wife is at about the same point.

[GG Lewis]

I absolutely love the care-taking parts of your obs! It sounds like you guys have a really great relationship!