Have yourself a merry little hallucination.

I was in touch with The Youth the other day. And found myself woefully out of touch.

I got my nails done, and the beautiful young woman next to me said she attended the same university I attended, lo those many years ago. Obviously, I had to engage her.

She’s studying engineering, so we were not soul mates. But as her nails dried into a sophisticated pale pink, she mentioned that she was spending Christmas at the beach and then going skiing with friends. She was so excited.

I looked at my bright green nails and smiled.

I don’t know about you, but I never went to the beach or skiing over winter break.

When I was in college, I generally got sick every winter break. Once finals were over, my body was all, “Gurl, no.” But when I developed my usual cold, I fought it with a combo of grit, cable TV, NyQuil, and Halls Menthol-Lyptus Cough Drops.

One night, I woke up to find a Halls cough drop hardcore stuck to the side of my face. I’d sucked on it weird and it was pointy on one end. But in my NyQuil haze, I didn’t think it was a cough drop.

I thought it was a tooth. I was so sick that I thought one of my teeth just up and fell out of my head. And I wasn’t even that upset! I distinctly remember thinking, “Oh. I lost one of my canine teeth. I will deal with this in the morning.”

So, yeah. No beach. No mountains. Only hallucinations and mucous on the frigid tundra of Iowa.