"Have you not heard of Lemsip?"

While this is close, I have not dialed 999 or 911. I'm just laid there and moaned, as men do.

I have launched right into wheeze mode with the laughter.

Oh my hell, that was so...so...realistic!

That is every boy I have ever known, particularly the ones whose mothers took WAY too much care of them as a young adult.

Walk it off. Walk it off.

Nice. When my husband has a cold he is quite the opposite. He usually paces around constantly taking every kind of medicine he can get his hands on and shaking pill bottles and complaining very loudly, seeing how loudly he can hork snot while standing an inch away from me, talking about politics more than usual, and clearing his throat impatiently every 30 seconds.
I think I would prefer what is depicted in this video.

Aaaah! This is my house at winter, too! This could only be more accurate if perhaps there were reqests for juice at a *specific* temperature, repeated trips to the drugstore for the *right* medicine ('cos the last 8 were WRONG, wrong meaning deadly, by the look of the reaction), and all missives being punctuated by the loudest nose-blowing I've ever in my life heard.
Thanks for passing it along.

as it should be... as. it. should. be.

This is exactly true and is happening to me as we speak, except we have the added bonus of Baby Cold. Fun times for Mom!

My boss and I discuss this phenomenon often. Amazing that they all act the same, even over seas!

I love that actor and the movies he's in, this is just another notch in his Belt of Awesome

I rarely get sick but when I do it's always a major emergency. The whole world around me knows I'm sick and I expect both their undivided attention and total peace and quite and the same time.

What's Lemsip? Anyone?

i ignored this 'mancold' until he got one last year, after the baby was born. i felt bad for him because the baby was getting all the attention. i caved and made him a sandwich. BAD MOVE. don't let it happen to you. ignore it and it will go away faster.

HA! Oh, Nick Frost reduces me to helpless giggles every. time. Also, poor poor Heather.

Seriously. All. Men. Do This. It makes my skin crawl and stuff. Fuck why can't I have a bell!??

"Poor Bunny...Poor Bunny..."

hahaha from smack the pony was it? Im british i love these guys n they did a bang up job on depicting the man flu :D god help all us women at this time of year. The guy actor is great watch him in 'Hot fuzz' if u like, dunno if that came out over your side of the pond.

I agree with Kelly. It's so much worse if you baby them. But what's funny to me is the juxtaposition between them wanting to be babied and being "tough".

Last year my dad was having some real trouble (I don't know that we ever figured out exactly what was wrong). My mother said "I think you're dehydrated." Incoherant and attempting to be tough he answered my mother "I'm too fat to be dehydrated." To which we scratched our heads and explained the concept of dehydration to him...

Kim,

Your husband claims beer makes man-colds better? Mine too!

My husband, however, hates it when I "mother" him. So he wanders around the house trying to do the thing I JUST OFFERED TO DO FOR HIM completely pathetically. I finally get frustrated and yell at him and send him back to bed and do it for him, which is somehow okay because being a hellish bitch is alright as long as it's not "mothering".

Yes, we have an odd relationship.

No really -- it was #26 when I posted it....

Wow, it is my ex-husband...with a British accent. I had the flu with a 105 degree fever yet I was apparently still functional ENOUGH to make him soup and run him a nice warm bath for his terrible aches. I agree with J. "walk it off, walk it off."

Yeah, that's my house. Very accurate reenactment for I think most households. Classic.

The bad part is that I am a firefighter/medic in Texas...and we actually go on those calls. No joking. And yes, I have a husband who does this too, makes me want to cut his head off.

My husband's version of a mancold involves more of not knowing what medicine to take for what and being entirely incapable of opening the bottles himself and figuring out dosages. That's when I fling the sudefed and ibuprofen at his head and tell him to stay his ass in bed and not give it to me.

This is also the man who thumped on the wall for me when his ankle hurt (he was in bed) and wanted me to "do something about it".

The next morning he couldn't feel his toes because I'd wrapped it so tightly. *innocent*

Dear God I love this. Will be posting it as well over at my tiny site.

I love Nick Frost, but I still wouldn't make him soup.

Aahh, another one of those moments that I am thankful that I am a lesbian. Thank you god for making me as queer as a three dollar bill so I don't have to deal with "Man Colds".

Very reminiscent of a scene from "Diary of a Mad Housewife" with Carrie Snodgrass & Richard Benjamin: "TINA! TEEN!...bring me some lemonade!"

She brings him some lemonade.

"Oh no -- NOT this. NOT the kind from a can! The kind where you cut up the lemons and make the sugar syrup and..."

No wonder she went mad.

Unfortunately, this starts as Little Man Cold. My five year old son has suffered from it since birth. Yet, my three year old daughter sucks it up and moves on when she's sick.

Fortunately, I learned early to threaten all male members of the family with a trip to the Emergency Room (with the promise of lots of shots) if they whine excessively about a lousy cold.

We women are the superior species after all. you could always slip a little something to help him sleep into the soup then get some lovely quiet time : ) (or is that just for the kids?)

MAN COLD. Ha!

Try dating the only son of a nurse. Even more pathetic, if that's possible.

Why is it that they can tell you how they broke their leg on the football field and tried to drag themselves back up to play, but a little cold puts them in bed for a week, whining for hot tea...(can you heat this up...it doesn't taste right, can you make some more?)and breathing like they're in a Lamaze class, with a huge sigh thrown in every five minutes.

Every wall-rattling sneeze is followed by "shit," every coughing fit is followed by "Oh, God!" If it's the flu, you can hear him puking from every room on both floors of the house. I took video of the dog stopping dead in her tracks on front of the bathroom door and not moving...just cocking her head back and forth. Who pukes like that???? I gave birth to 3 kids and never made a peep...'cause I was raised like that.

Puh-lease.

And now he feels a kidney stone coming on....circle the wagons. I'm outta here.

As my grandmother always said...When men get sick, they get that "Come get me, Jesus" look on their faces.

Jeff... duuuude.

Me and my girl at the office watched this 3 times. We laughed and laughed til our boss said, "Get back to work". Men are such babies. I LOVE THIS ONE!

This was hilarious.

Although I think it doesn't just stop at Man Cold, but extends to Man Headache, Man Backache, and Man Tummy-ache as well.

And don't ever try to fight a mancold with anything stronger than Sudafed. I gave my husband codeine when we were traveling because I thought it would make him pass out long enough for me to get a good night's sleep at the hotel...WRONG! I wake up at 3 a.m. and he's watching the O'Reilly Factor (wtf?) at full volume on the t.v. and chatting up my brother and sister-in-law about their latest trip to Burning Man.

Apparently, he felt the high was just too good to waste on sleeping.

Following on from what Z. said on comment #68, this time of the year in England is also known as "Man Flu season", and funny enough people immediately understand the expression. Ask for the whereabouts of a male friend to their partner and they'll go "Ah, he's not here tonight, he's got man flu", and no one will need further explanation.
My other half is luckily built "like a brick sh*t house" (another enjoyable British expression), but he loves to complain about his running top rubbing on his nipples, which I suppose makes him a sufferer of, uhm, Man NippleRash?
(My oh my, how I hate that word!)

Hiiiilarious. I'm forwarding to my mother and all of my girlfriends right now. So true. Although I can't complain too much – my fiance gets sick like once every three years, but he still acts completely pathetic.

erm.. I'm a little ashamed to admit that it's the other way around in our house. I throw myself into a pile of duvets in the lounge and bitch and moan for a week, while the boy goes to work and shakes his head at me whenever I beg for more painkillers.

Nice to know that the men across the "pond" suffer from the same man colds that our homegrown guys do.

I laughed so hard I almost had to call 911 for oxygen.

Thanks!

Around last year when I had a cold, my bf came by and made me soup and sat and watched bad TV with me while I was in my Nyquil-induced coma, even though he had a big test the next day. I thought is was just the nicest thing ever...until he started bringing it up every time I wanted him to do something:
Me: I've asked you a million times to put your socks in the hamper.
Him: But I made you soup when you were sick!

Now he's not allowed to do anything for me when I'm sick.

Honestly, it was Campbell's soup. He microwaved that shit.

A man will go to war, fight and die for his country. But he won't get a bikini wax. - Rita Rudner

You think this is the worst part? Oh no! The worst part is when you get the cold and he treats you the way he wants to be treated when he has the cold. And the only thing you want from this shall-I-get-you-soup-pillow-book man, with your red, red eyes; scratchy, scratchy throat; and sore, sore nose is just to bloody well be left alone.

But he means well.

Cheers!

Oh, this made me hurt myself. I was drinking coffee when they got to the "He's got a MAN cold" line and I think I blew it into my eardrums.

I would've hit him in the head with that bell. just sayin'.

A Man Cold! Hee hee hee.

I feel like I've just watched my own life flash before my eyes.
I need a drink... ;)

SO true!!

holy. mother. of. jesus. that is completely accurate. well, besides the fun accent. we don't have that.

Man Cold! HA!

I think the best part is the guy mocking the girl for her cold at the end. Too funny. Cause, well, that's how it is.

Why don't you just let Chuck eat the Cheerios? You're just going to throw them away anyway when you get home?

He must be hungry. Just let him eat them. What's it going to hurt? ... Well? What's it going to hurt? Why be so uptight and high strung? Settle down. The poor dog is not doing anything wrong. Just relax. Seriously.

That's awesome!

Now, this isn't related to winter or being sick, but it's gotta be the funniest video on youtube at the moment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fejcZsGqLQM

I used to date the comedian playing the paramedic before he hit the BBC. Wish I hadn't dumped him now...

Man-cold always hits our house each year and according to hubs, he's dying. He's worse during man-flu. If that's possible.

Man Stroke Woman should be way more popular than it is, it's really funny. For the record, I would totally marry Nick Frost.

In case the last part of the clip was lost on any of you guys in the States, the thing he says he's going to watch is CBeebies, which is a BBC thing for kids, kinda like Nickelodeon... actually it's for toddlers, so it's more like Nick Jr.

Brilliant! Bloody brilliant!

This is spectacularly funny and exactly how my husband behaves when he has a sniffle!

Something even funnier happened, my husband watched it over my shoulder, and said "I don't get it what is so funny with this guy being sick?" I’m married to a brilliant mathematician with a PhD.
I told him it’s an inside joke women have about men!

I am so glad to read these comments and know that my house is not the oddity in this world. HRH(my nickname for my husband) has a cold right now and slept with a hat on. He also has no problem waking me up at 3 in the morning to ask me if we have any medicine for him.While he is standing in front of the medicine cabinent. As if it only appears to my vision and not his.

This made my day - thanks for the linage and general fun in this blog :)

Oh My Goodness! I TOTALLY want your stockings! Those are so neat - think your Mom's friend would make me some? :D

side note: I read your blog daily and it always makes me laugh - kudos to you! :)

That is priceless! This is our house, all the time, not just winter!
I have found that I am full of empathy, but that's where it stops. My husband says, "you know exactly how I feel but could care less..." Yep, that about sums it up!

Thanks! I love your website!

Thanks for the laugh...I needed it...husband was home for 2 days w/the Man Cold and now I have two boys home w/the flu...someone save me!

I have three males at my house. This means when they are struck down with a man cold, I get to look at mountains and trails of used tissues. EVERYWHERE.

Then there's the honking, sniffing, coughing, gagging... It's a good thing no one asks me for soup, because then I'd have to kill them.

yes. yes! YES! I've been with my husband for three years and he's only ever been sick once in that time, but that time was one time too many for me.

I had never heard him whine before.

I'd never heard him complain.

I felt like I was living in an alternate universe; one where I had just given birth to a 30-year-old boy who needed me to take care of him but didn't want me to take care of him at the same time. I'll have to remember the hotel idea.

I love Nick Frost!

That's my husband or my brother or my son. Maybe all men are like that. Too funny. Thanks for posting!

Men certainly seem to be the same the world over, eh? I laughed so hard the dogs came to see what was up...

:)

I've sent this to everyone I know! It's disgustingly true! I can't quit laughing. Man-cold! I'll laugh for the rest of my life!