The common cold is the highest form of evolution for any disease. All diseases should aspire to be the common cold. Most younger, stupider diseases havent figured out yet that if you kill your host, or even make them really ugly, you wont spread any more. I have deep respect for the cold. I had a 2-month loving relationship with a cold virus while I was in college once — I was very satisfying: it was another living thing to keep me company at night with assorted wetness of mucous membranes, it was someone who would listen to me without judgment, and it gave me a reason to pamper myself. Hey, when youre young and stupid, what more are you looking for in a relationship? And now that Im older and wiser, I use the common cold as a powerful indication: if I get a cold, that means that something was wrong enough in my life that my immune system succumbed to it, and tells me very clearly that I need to be taking beter care of myself. Hooray for the Cold!