Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures

Using 'Scorched Earth' Tactics Down My Throat

In an effort to derail the cough/congestion/phlegm-fountain malady that's threatening to take up residence in my bronchial tubes and sinuses for the next 8-12 weeks, I've been mainlining the meds and getting as much fluids and vitamins as I can.

Trouble is, this crap's tenacious, and fights dirty. I was already on antibiotics, and quick applications of Mucinex and zinc lozenges seemed to gain me some early ground.

Alas, the nasty glopmonster fought back with dried out sinuses, where dessicated capillaries rupture & form lovely nosebleeds whenever I cough too hard (about 3x per day). Also, there's now a post-nasal drip mucosal landing zone right atop my gag-reflex trigger point in the back of my throat, causing me to spend most mornings hawking up snot while desperately trying to avoid tossing my cookies on the bathroom floor.

I'm getting maybe two hours sleep a night from all the coughing. It had to stop, and stop quickly.

So, enter the 800 lb. gorilla of the cough suppressant choices.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... Buckley's Cough Mixture!



Here's the ingredients...

Ammonium Carbonate
Potassium Bicarbonate
Menthol
Camphor
Canada Balsam
Carrageenan
Glycerin
Pine Needle Oil
Sodium Butylparaben
Sodium Cyclamate
Sodium Propylparaben
Tincture of Capsicum
Water

You might have seen their ads, where a blindfolded taste-tester can't decide whether Buckley's or the contents of a public restroom floor puddle tastes better. Here's a quote from one of their radio ads:

"If you are inquiring about your cough mixture tasting like expired milk, trash-bag leakage, a postpedicure foot bath, a state fair porta-potty, decomposing meat fat, monkey sweat, used denture soak, New Jersey, or hippie-festival runoff, please hang up. Your cough will be gone shortly."

This company positively REVELS in how bad their product tastes!

And how does it taste?

You have NO idea... Let me see if I can come close to the true Buckley's experience...

Take a bottle of Pine-Sol, and pour most of it out. Fill it to the top with hot foamy urine from a horse with a chronic bladder infection that's been eating asparagus. Take the bottle and pour it out on the bathroom floor of a sleazy stripjoint. Scatter around a box of mothballs and several ashtrays worth of Kool and Salem cigarette butts. Make a broom out of pine needles and wood glue and use it to scrub the floor until the mothballs are mostly dissolved in the floor liquids. Burn the broom afterwards and sprinkle the ashes onto the floor.

Mop it all up, strain out the ciggie butts and small crawly things, bottle, and sell as a cough remedy.

THAT is how bad this shit tastes. The cure actually seems worse than the disease.

It does seem to slow the cough, though! I think it's because your body fears the re-introduction of more Buckley's mixture...