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I suffered through a dreadful cold earlier this year. I rarely catch a cold, maybe once every couple years. When in the throes, I am miserable, ornery, and turn off nearly all my routine activities.

Along with the symptoms — the sniffling, the clearing of passages, the wheezy coughing, and the explosive sneezing — I descend into a sulking, cranky mood. This state is debilitating enough without hearing my dear wife’s familiar responses to my suffering. “Suffering?” she declares dismissively, “Get over it!”

Early in this last onset, I overheard her commenting on the phone, “Oh, he says he thinks he’s coming down with a cold. Yeah. (Laughter) He’s shuffling around ’suffering.’ My ’man-child!’”

I love her dearly, but she sure knows how to stick it to a guy when he’s suffering... er... maybe I should stop using that word. “Miserable” maybe? Er.. ”Out of sorts?” Yes, better.

As she hung up the phone, I sneezed and asked where the Kleenex was. Shaking her head, she took a few steps, reached in our powder room and crossed over to me plunking the box down on my hassock. “There, big guy. And the other boxes are upstairs and in the closet.”

I grunted, without commenting on the harsh tone I detected in her remark. Next she informed me she was going out on some errands, would I like to come along? Blowing my nose, then sighing, I said, “No, you go. Just now I...”

“’S’pose you’ll be laying around all day.” Her harsh tone definitely came through. “Did you take the DayQuil I put out this morning?”

“Oh, forgot. You put it where?”

“Next to the aspirin. I suppose you forgot that, too, my baby-man.”

I took that as a clue to pick myself up and head for the medicine upstairs. Had I not, I am sure she would have, and returned to pour the DayQuil out, handing it to me, then the aspirin and a cup of water. How perfectly that would have underscored her “baby-man” jab!

“Man-child. Baby-man.” Alone, suffering.. er.. out of sorts, I thought: “Why do women in general have such an unsympathetic attitude when their men are stricken with colds, muscle strains, indigestion, back aches and other maladies?” They dismiss as minor so much that men respond to with intense discomfort.

To be fair, I must admit that one might observe some drama in my pain and discomfort. She is amused when I moan excessively or shuffle around the house at an invalid’s pace. And she is annoyed when the basic medications she tells me to use are ignored and complaining multiplies. Her standard, “Just get up. Move around. You’re not dying.” She is a wonderful mate. Loving, caring ready to help in any way... when there is a real need for it. The message is there, clearly.

As I recovered from this last cold (when I finally remembered to take the medicine and grudgingly followed her harsh suggestions to “Get up, move around, get busy and stop moaning and groaning every five minutes!”), I asked her if her irritation with me and that “baby-man, man-child” attitude was common among her women friends?“ She laughed out-loud. “Universal,” she answered and laughed aloud again.

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Ted Beranis, of Bonita Springs, is a retired educator.