Years ago, I got this brilliant idea to do a survey of all the cough syrups on the market. I would rate them according to taste and effectiveness. It would be a satiric send-up of those magazine stories where they rate the Scotches. I thought this was hilarious.

The editor I was pitching thought it sounded fun, too, though he had some concerns. Like: I wasn’t planning to take them all in one sitting, was I?

Oh sure. Why not?

We scrapped that story, and it bums me out now when I get sick, because I still don’t know which cough syrup I should buy. There are so many to choose from. It’s bad enough to be sick, but then you find yourself slack-jawed and foggy-headed in the medication aisle at CVS, a living embodiment of the paradox of choice: Tylenol Cough or Robitussin? Nyquil or Theraflu?

I went with Tylenol Cough (CVS version) which wiped me out for an entire day. I’m not kidding. It was like a hangover in blue liquid form. I could hardly move from my bed on Sunday. I felt like I’d been hit on the head. Which — incidentally — is the name of the story I just wrote for Salon about being mugged in New Orleans and dating the detective on the case, etc etc. I know readers of this blog have read that story before, but I promise there are new twists.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go languish under the covers for 10 hours.