I don’t know if I’ve ever met a cough I liked. The act of coughing is disturbing, interruptive and often oddly passive aggressive, like people are secretly trying to get a message across. Here are the main types I can identify:
The Pretty Girl Cough: Oh, excuse me, that just eeked right out! I can’t really make loud noises because I’m just a little tweety bird, as delicate as a butterfly, but occasionally a little “eh …. eh” slips out in a baby voice! It’s sad when I get sick, so coddle me and bring me lots of ice cream!
The Big Dude Cough: I fill up a room no matter where I go. When I’m on the phone, everybody knows what I’m saying, and my laugh is so obnoxious that I disturb conversations at all the other tables in any given restaurant I happen to be guffawing in. Naturally, my cough is also rather dominant, even kind of violent. Deal with it.
The “I’m Gravely Serious” Cough: I let my cough get ugly. I don’t care how it makes me look because I am SERIOUSLY sick. I want you to look at me with a furrowed brow and suggest I leave work early and get some rest. Come on. Do it.
The Cough that’s Just a Cough: Unlike most people, I’m only coughing because I honest to god have all this muck in my lungs that I need to get into my general upper-throat area. I’m trying to keep my coughs short so that they don’t bother everyone around me.
The “Look at Me Already” Cough: I like to come out during quiet times, like a final exam or a particularly solemn mass. There’s a crowd, and I’m going to cough until people start turning around and squinting, like “Really, you’re still coughing?” Yes I am still coughing, and I’m going to cough until all these strangers know that I exist.
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