What I have to say may get me kicked off the internet. But I’m sorry –- this site is about truth, and I must tell it.

Join with me. Demand moderation. And if you hear any artist other than Don Henley singing "Please Come Home For Christmas," drag them to my house. I’m filling the neighbor’s wading pool with eggnog.

This blog post will be an experiment. I have been trying to write for a couple days, but I have a really bad cold, and just trying to function is like trying to swim through a pool full of taffy. But I have something to say, and I am going to get the words down, no matter how hard it is to see the screen or how much the after-effects of NyQuil cause me to digress.

And this is about NyQuil. I haven’t been sick in years, but I do remember that when I used to get a cold, I would take a dose of NyQuil and WHAM! My congestion cleared up, I felt high and happy, and then if I didn’t make it to the bed fast enough, I’d wake up on the floor six hours later. Not anymore. I took a dose on Friday after work, climbed right into bed, and … nothing. Two hours later, I was rubbing Vicks Vaporub on my chest and watching Moonlight, that new vampire show on CBS I’m really starting to get into. Did you know the lead actor on that show is Australian? He sounds perfectly American, but his phrasing is a bit odd sometimes, and that may be the reason. I don’t care. I like the show, and what’s really cool is that the actress who plays Beth, the vampire’s love interest, actually played a vampire in Underworld, one of the coolest movies ever.

But back to NyQuil. I did some web surfing, and it turns out they changed the formula recently because it used to contain something that would get filtered out and used to make crystal meth. Unfortunately, the ingredient that got filtered out, pseudoephedrine, is the very ingredient that made it work so well in the first place.

But what really got me is how mad consumers are about it. Apparently, NyQuil had a serious fan club out there. The change in formula is the subject of entire web pages, bulletin boards, blogs, and discussion groups. And for once, I stand with the geeks. If I had been taking the old formula NyQuil this weekend, the one with the formula that God intended it to have, I would be crawling out of bed this morning feeling completely better. That’s because I would have slept for 24 hours, waking up only every six hours or so to take another dose. Instead, I spent my weekend waking up every couple of hours, struggling for breath, popping another Halls drop and rubbing Vaporub all over my chest, and boiling some water on the stove so I could stand over it and inhale. Then I would fall back into bed, just to wake up two hours later and go through the whole thing again.

You can’t get well like that. You need solid sleep. NyQuil used to dry me up so fast, I’m pretty sure my circulatory system shut down. I turned into a vampire on NyQuil. And just like vampires, when I awoke from the deep sleep, I felt refreshed, well-rested, and ready to stalk my prey and feed – um, I mean, go to the kitchen for a bowl of oatmeal.

Instead, I spent the weekend trying to breathe through my nose. By the way, the almost unanimous vote on all the blogs and bulletin boards was that Tylenol Cold & Flu is the new savior. It’s got the crystal meth drug in it and works even better than the old NyQuil. If I’m not feeling any better this afternoon, I’m going to get some. Another blogger suggested just swigging Jack Daniels until I pass out, and believe me, if Jack Daniels could dry up my sinuses, I’d be throwing a cinderblock through the local ABC Store right now. Stupid Sunday ordinance.

My brothers and sisters, we have lived in denial long enough. I will lay some gospel truth right here and now, and I will be ridiculed. I will be called a blasphemer. What I have to say may provoke even the most peaceful, hippy-trippy of you into a rage that will have you blowing up my car. (Go ahead, I could use the insurance.)

Brace yourself, dear ones. I say this out of love:

Your cell phone does not work as well as you think it does.

No, no - listen to me.

YOUR CELL PHONE DOES NOT WORK AS WELL AS YOU THINK IT DOES.

YOU ARE DELUDING YOURSELF, AND IT IS VERY, VERY SAD.

Before you track me down and pelt me with your battery charges, earpieces, multicolored faceplates, leather cases, add-on antennas, anti-radiation devices, and love letters from Chad, please hear my testimony.

I live and work in North Carolina, USA. That's on the East Coast. My job is in customer service. Most of my clients call from the West Coast. And many of them also call from Japan, China, Germany, and a few countries I can't pronounce. And 90% of the time, they are using a cell phone.

They call during thunderstorms. They call from crowded restaurants. God Bless my clients - one of them called me:

1. from Hong Kong,
2. while riding a train,
3. during rush hour,
4. during bad weather,
5. on a cell phone,
6. surrounded by 1,000 other commuters,
7. who were also screaming into their cell phones.

They call me from frat parties. No, I'm not kidding. All I can hear is loud music and laughing and barfing. And behind all that is a slurred, muffled voice saying, “Dude, I have a question bzzzzzzzzzzzt email I received brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt fifty dollar late fee bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt seven swans a-swimming bzzzzzzzzzzzzt can you hear me???”

They call me while standing in line at Starbucks. I don't drink coffee and I've never been to Starbucks, but judging by the noise, I'm guessing that's where the Foo Fighters are rehearsing for their next tour.

One woman called, and all I heard was ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF. Her dog was right next to her, and she was standing in the kitchen. She didn't make any attempt to quiet the dog, and she had the nerve to get mad at me for asking her to get away from the dog so I could hear her. Apparently, Fido gets his feelings hurt easily, and now he'll be too depressed to compete in the Hideously Pampered Mutts Pageant. Not that he stood a chance anyway. Leona Helmsley's dog wins every year.

And therein lies the problem. No, not with Leona Helmsley's dog. Try to follow me here.

The problem is that you, my brothers and sisters, get angry and insulted - yes, insulted - when I tell you I'm having trouble hearing you.

The number one defensively-hurled retort I get is, “Well, I can hear YOU just fine!!”

Oh. Okay. I guess that solves everything. I'm losing every other syllable on this end, and I can't tell if you're asking me how much you owe on your account or telling me about your upcoming colonoscopy, but at least YOU can hear ME. Because in a two-way conversation, only one person needs to know what's going on.

Another favorite response I hear whined a lot is: “But I have all my bars showing!”

Those damn bars. That's from AT&T. Their slogan is “more bars in more places.” They don't actually state that more bars means perfect reception, because that would be a lie, and we could then sue them. They don't actually state what the bars mean. It's IMPLIED that more bars mean perfect reception. If you took them to court, you'd lose.

It's like what comedian Richard Jeni, rest his brilliant soul, used to say about the product “I Can't Believe It's Not Butter.” If that product turned out to be something poisonous, and we tried to sue them, we'd lose. We'd tell the judge, “Hey, this isn't butter!” and the defendants would say triumphantly, “Hey, we never said it WAS!”

Lady, I don't care if you have bars. You can have bars and nightclubs and every single live Vegas lounge act performing on the Strip, and that doesn't change the fact that you're still calling me from the elevator of the Space Needle while the kid next to you is practicing the trombone and the other occupants are Courtney Love and Pamela Anderson cage-matching over some scruffy loser they found in a bowling alley. Cell phone bars are not miracle workers, and I CAN'T FRIGGIN' HEAR YOU.

Don't get me wrong. Cell phones are great. I own a cell phone. I just know better than to try to call someone when I'm around anything louder than a chirping cricket.

There is no perfect, crystal-clear cell phone connection.

I'll say it again.

THERE IS NO PERFECT, CRYSTAL-CLEAR CELL PHONE CONNECTION.

And do not take it personally when I can't hear you. I'm not challenging your manhood. I'm not questioning whether or not your parents were married when they had you. I'm not judging you for obsessing over your dog. I just want you to realize that you are using shaky, relatively new technology that involves sound waves being able to bounce off the nearest tower, which could be 500 miles away, and then travel through God knows what kind of atmospheric conditions to get to my little desk here in North Carolina, where I'm surrounded by chatty co-workers and an office-mate's radio that seems to be tuned into a station that plays the best beach music in the Carolinas, which would be fine except that I hate beach music and will some day bring a harpoon gun into the office to destroy that radio so I'll never have to hear the Drifters sing that stupid song about the boardwalk ever again.

And I lied. I am judging you. You are way too obsessed with that stupid dog.