How “going green” saved my marriage and helped me sleep better
By Tom Quiner
I’ve been fighting a nasty bug for nine days.
My sleep has been terrible because coughing keeps me awake.
I tried Vicks NyQuil which is 10% alchohol. It works pretty well, and then it stops at 3 AM. But directions say I can’t take more until it’s too late.
I tried the generic version of alcohol-free Robutussin. It didn’t cut it.
My coughing was bad enough that I felt compelled by common decency to switch to a different bedroom so my poor wife could get some sleep.
After two nights in the dungeon, suddenly, like an answered prayer, a solution was presented to me.
I “went green.” Or to be slightly more accurate, I went Chartreuse.
It was 3AM. I was desperate for some sleep. In my quiet despair, I peeked into my liquor cabinet. There it was! A bottle of Chartreuse. I receive two bottles a year from my friend, Fr. John. If a priest gives it to me, it has to be good stuff, right?
For the uninitiated, Chartreuse is a liqueur. Let me read what the label says about it:
“Chartreuse is made ONLY by Carthusian Monks of La Grande Chartreuse near Grenoble, France.”
I’m a good Catholic boy. It’s off to a good start (although I don’t trust the French)!
“Chartreuse today is still made from 130 alpine herbs according to an ancient 1605 formula.”
Did you you pick up on the number “130?” It’s got to represent the Holy Trinity: one God, three forms.
“The secret method of preparation is shared by three [of course] Carthusian brothers and is protected by vows of silence [uh, oh, sounds like the Obama administration].
“The only liqueur to have a color named after it.” [Impressive!]
I poured myself a very, very small quantity (after all it is 55% alcohol). Guess how many sips I took?
If you said three (again, representing the Trinity), you are correct. My coughing stopped. I got back to sleep.
The next night, still in the dungeon, I tried the magic green elixir from God again. And it worked. I shored up with three more sips at 3 AM.
Emboldened, I returned to the Master Bedroom on the third night with a small glass containing six sips of God’s cough syrup, three for bedtime, and three for 3PM. [I am convinced Obamacare should include Chartreuse in its coverage. If they provide free birth control pills, they should cover Chartreuse. People get coughing fits a lot more often than they get pregnant.]
This flu bug has once again reminded me that all roads lead to the Trinity!
I can hardly wait for bedtime.
I will have to get a bottle of that for my next (cough cough) bout of the flu. Hope you’re feeling better!
I will after my next three sips, which are coming up in about three minutes!
Tom, on your worst day you are still the most entertaining and insightful Conservative I know! Praise God for ALL his gifts, including 55% alcohol!
Perhaps you should have a wee nip tomorrow night. I think Fr. John really gets the stuff at Quark’s bar on Deep Space 9. Thanks for the kind words. And praise God for 55%!
I always assumed that those stereotypes of Catholics being drunks were unfounded…
My mom, who was a nurse, kept a bottle of orange vodka in the cupboard for cough medicine. A tablespoon for a cough before bed was standard. Of course this was years and years ago.
Sounds like a promising cure. Three sips of Chartreuse simply soothes the throat and warms the tummy for a night of peaceful, cough-free sleep;-)
It quiets the cough center in brain. Wonder if my Godiva liqueur will…
Lovely blog post. Pray you are fit as a fiddle in 1, 2, 3!
Godiva liqueur sounds awfully good! What is the alcohol content? If it’s less than 55%, you may simply have to drink more of it!
My parents were Baptists and strict teetotalers, but they kept a bottle of brandy in the kitchen cupboard for medicinal purposes. Any time one of us kids got the stomach virus, all of us had to take a dose of that brandy. To this day I can’t stand the taste of brandy, as I associate it with the stomach virus.
Hmmm … hope this doesn’t mean that I’ll want to give up recreational consumption of Chartreuse!