The surprising miracle hack (get it?) behind how cough syrup works

I got a bad cough about two months ago.

It wasn't COVID-19 and I'm pretty sure it wasn't the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) virus (although maybe it was). But after a week, a dry cough persisted — making it impossible to sleep lying down. I had to sit up all night, which is far from preferable.

I saw my doctor and she prescribed two inhalers and suggested cough drops and cough syrup.

I followed her instructions: Slowly, the cough got better. A little better, but not much better. Was the inhaler working? Seemed like it.

Then Mrs. Brad and I went on vacation, thinking the cough was behind me. It flared up again. I had a bad cough on vacation! It had been more than three weeks and I kept coughing. I had to buy more cough drops. More cough syrup (which is expensive). Even more cough drops.

Eventually, I checked online for various ways to combat a persistent dry cough. Maybe my doctor missed something. Maybe there was a trick.

The medical websites said to drink plenty of water (I did,). They said to use cough drops or other hard candies (I did).

Cough syrup? Most posts honed in on the same idea: Cough syrup doesn't make your lungs or your throat better. It's a trick. It fools your brain into stopping the cough reflex, so it's not that special. Cough syrup is kind of a scam.

That's what they said, but here's what I thought: SERIOUSLY? COUGH SYRUP FIXES MY BRAIN? THAT'S AMAZING!

Apparently, cough syrup skeptics want readers to know that cough syrup doesn't fix your lungs. So what? It fixes our brains!

Coughing apparently happens because we have a cough reflex!

One post said there is very little evidence that cough works better than a placebo. Another said, "Cough suppressants work in the brain stem to stop the cough reflex. Basically, they trick your brain into thinking that it doesn't need to cough, but the icky stuff in your lungs that's causing the cough remains the same."

First of all, the use of the word "icky" made me question whether a scientist wrote it. But secondly, if syrup stops me from coughing, isn't that good? Do the cough syrup deniers think I want to keep coughing?

The question isn't whether I should use a medication that works in the brain stem to stop the cough reflex. Of course I should! The real question is why this technology hasn't gone further.

If we can stop the cough reflex, could we also have something that stops the sneeze reflex? What about the laugh-at-inappropriate-time reflex? What about the worrying-about-dumb-stuff-while-trying-to-go-to-sleep reflex? What about The Reflex reflex, where you automatically start dancing to the 1990 song by Duran Duran?

A persistent cough is no joke and cough syrup only slows, doesn't stop your coughing. I acknowledge that the principal benefit of many cough syrups is they make you sleepy, giving you much-needed rest..

But I learned something, which is still important to me as I continue to recover from my coughing: Cough syrup magically tells my brain stem to quit making me cough.

For my money, that's better than anything it could do to help my lungs, even as I inexplicably dance to The Reflex.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Rest stop-type 'superstores' are America's secret paradise

You can have your Walmarts and Targets and Sam's Clubs and Costcos.

But if I have a set amount of money (say $40) and a set amount of time (30 minutes?), there's one place I'd go to spend my money and get the best combination of value and selection: A rest-stop-type store along an interstate highway.

For bonus points, one with plenty of room for truckers to park. Those are usually called "truck stops," but the stores often are for all kinds of travelers.

You can get plenty of whatever you want at a big warehouse store, but that's not what I want. I don't need four pounds of peanut butter or 264 rolls of toilet paper or 12 gallons of water in 16-ounce plastic bottles. Those are fine, but here's what I want:

• Coffee,
• Beef jerky,
• A hat that has the slogan of a nearby small town,
• A regional newspaper,
• Chicken strips,
• A small box of Ritz crackers,
• A Hawaiian shirt.

I suspect with $40 and a half-hour, I could get those (I might need more money, depending on the quality of the hat and shirt) at a store alongside an interstate. In addition, I would enjoy rubbing elbows with the other denizens of the store, none of whom likely live within 200 miles of the location and all of whom are just grateful to be off the road for a little bit.

Roadside "superstores" are an American treasure. Take a trip east on Interstate 80 or head either north or south on Interstate 5 and you'll pass several of them. And ultimately, you'll need gas and a restroom and you'll stop and enjoy the magnificence of these creations of the combination of America's travel (and trucking) industry and marketing.

You can get almost anything at those places (including some things that I'd rather not know about). The beauty is that in the store-for-the-traveler world, building size doesn't matter that much. Of course, I started by writing about the superstores that populate our interstates, but even the smaller versions – those rest-stop-type stores that have maybe eight gas pumps and 1,000 square feet of store space – the same idea is at play.

A little bit of everything: Snacks, drinks, some fruit, coffee, magazines, a weird assortment of clothing, emergency medical supplies, "hot" food (perhaps days old) and more. Everything a traveler needs to get to the next stop.

It's time we recognize the beauty of those places. Due to their location (almost always "in the middle of nowhere," on a flat area surrounded by freeways and offramps), they seem like a necessary evil, something needed to keep our vehicle filled with fuel and a place where we can go to the bathroom and get a snack. But isn't that perfect?

One definition of perfection is "to achieve the purpose for which something is created." Under that definition, roadside stores are perfect.

And they're a great place to find new flavors of beef jerky and to get a 24-ounce cup of hours-old coffee. What could be more perfect than that?

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Moons over Jupiter -- the 'Gas Giant' moves past Saturn into first place

There's a new leader in the clubhouse: Jupiter, with 92 moons.

The Gas Giant (a real nickname!) took the solar system lead last year, when an additional 12 moons were added to its list. That moved Jupiter past Saturn for the all-important spot as the solar system's most-rotated planet.

We haven't seen this heavy a rotation since all the songs from "Saturday Night Fever" were popular at the same time!

Saturn still has 83 moons, consigned to the runner-up spot in the moon race behind Jupiter's 92.

The International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center added the moons to its list. (By the way, the International Astronomical Union is one of America's strongest unions. Their strike in 1948 resulted in Pluto being added to the solar system, a move that was disallowed only when Ronald Reagan was elected president and a backlash against unions led to the deregulation of planetary designation. Pluto, lacking an effective lobbying group, lost out.) The "new" moons were discovered in 2021 and 2022 by telescopes in Chile and Hawaii and range in size from a little over a half-mile to 2 miles wide.

Astronomers say it's possible that the more distant planets (Uranus and Neptune) could have more moons that we've seen, but it's hard to tell because of the distance. Astronomers also say Uranus is the best planet name, then burst out laughing like 13-year-old boys in a science class.

Mercury and Venus, closer to the sun than us, have no moons. Mars has two and of course, Earth has one.

That ties Earth on the list of items with the most moons with the Who (drummer Keith Moon), the Houston Oilers of 1984-1993 (Warren Moon), the Los Angeles Dodgers of 1959-1965 (Wally Moon) and the San Francisco Giants of 1975-1987 (Greg "Moon Man" Minton).

That's not bad. I mean you could do worse than to tie with the Who and with the Giants (although Minton's era was probably the darkest era in team history).

For Jupiter, this is a major milestone. Until now, Jupiter was mostly known as the biggest planet in the solar system (kind of like being the largest member of the Jackson 5 or the heaviest man ever to be president) and for being in the opening lyrics to "Ages of Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In," by the Fifth Dimension. ("When the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars . . ." which is apparently gibberish. According to my source (Wikipedia), the moon is in the seventh house twice every day and Jupiter aligns with Mars twice a year. So it's not that unusual. However, we all agree that we should let the sunshine in.)

But back to the basic point. Jupiter is now No. 1 in our solar system for moons, leading all other planets, a famous rock band and at least three sports franchises. Saturn is now second and must be content with being the only planet that is also a car model I drove. And Uranus is still the dream planet name for all 13-year-old boys and well . . . me, too.

Congratulations, Jupiter.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

A Solano County dream being fulfilled elsewhere by a flying car

Is a promise of our childhood about to arrive? Is it possible that a few decades after we thought the first flying cars would be produced in Solano County (Seriously. In Dixon. More on that in a few paragraphs), we're about to see it really happen? 

Local governments in Virginia are beginning to plan regulations for flying cars. That's not an outrageous planning move, it's prudent: After all, the first Jetson One – a flying car whose inventor says it can take off and land in a driveway – is expected to be delivered to a Virginia resident this year. This year! A flying car! Yes, Virginia, there is a flying car!

The Jetson One is a one-person flying machine. The manufacturers of the $92,000 vehicle require all people who buy it to attend a class before taking off, but according to some reviews, it's intuitive and easy to fly. It also only has a 20-minute flying radius with a maximum speed of 63 mph – meaning you could fly about 21 miles before presumably charging it up for the flight home. Not bad if you live in Fairfield and work in Vallejo or Vacaville.

A flying car! And it's (allegedly) coming to Virginia this year and probably to other places in the United States. The Jetson One people say they've presold 500 vehicles around the world, so it's hard to believe there won't be multiple sales in the United States.

As mentioned earlier, this almost happened in Dixon. Moller International was a company founded by Paul Moller, who spent 50 years trying to create a flying car, first in Davis (where he taught at U.C. Davis), then in Dixon.  In the 1980s, one prototype repeatedly hovered at 50 feet during a demonstration for investors. Early in the 21st century, another of Moller's vehicles achieved "tethered hovering capabilities," which sounds more like a helium balloon and less like a flying car. Moller spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the M400, a four-passenger vehicle that achieved the aforementioned hovering.

The company was the focus of various Daily Republic articles from the 1980s through the 2000s. I read them all.

In 2019, a fire destroyed the first two prototypes Moller built in the 1960s. By then, his company had been dormant for years (its website looks like it hasn't been updated since 2017) and reportedly reached an agreement with a Chinese company to continue production. It's unclear if the Moeller M400 – or any prototypes – are still being pursued, although in an interview last summer, Moller insisted he was still pursuing a flying car and his company was private.

We'll see what happens. Never doubt a dreamer. (Also, never fall in love with a dreamer, as Kim Carnes and Kenny Rodgers sang.)

But . . . but . . . but . . . the Jetson One people created the Jetson One (arguably the greatest name for a vehicle since Volkswagen created "The Thing" for a couple of years in the 1970s, a fact I know because my dad bought one that I wrecked twice in two weeks during my senior year of high school). The Jetson One is in production and someone in Virginia bought one for delivery this year and because of that, the government agencies in that state are making plans.

I'm not sure how they'll govern it. Will you have to pass on the left? Who has the right of way? Is it illegal to buzz your former workplace? Can you use it to drop water balloons on unsuspecting tennis players from hundreds of feet above?

It's all up in the air (pun intended). But here's what we know: A dream that was pursued in Solano County for four decades might be fulfilled this year.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

'The Bachelor,' Shakespeare and Homer: Why poems must rhyme

Start with an embarrassing premise: Mrs. Brad and I were watching "The Bachelor" recently (OK, get your laughs out of the way. Ha ha ha) and the  guy who all the women were pursuing wrote a poem to a woman named Kaity and then read it.

I don't remember what it said, but I remembered what it didn't do: Rhyme.

It was a poem without rhymes, which I immediately told Mrs. Brad was wrong. I even freestyled for her a poem he could have written: "Hello Kaity. We're on a date-y. I won't keep you out late-y  to determine whether you will be my matey. I promise not to do anything shady."

It was freestyle! It was great! It rhymed!

Mrs. Brad, who has a degree in English, shot back with the same ridiculous answer I've heard my entire life: Poems don't have to rhyme.

Which is patently ridiculous.

Poems don't have to rhyme? Then what makes something a poem? Is this sentence a poem? Is the Declaration of Independence a poem? Is a note from a parent to a teacher a poem?

To augment my argument, I did what I've been doing since I was in elementary school and needed to lengthen an assignment: I looked it up in Webster's Dictionary.

According to Webster's (which is how you always phrase these things), a poem is "a metrical writing," (a definition I ignored because we don't use the metric system) or the production of a poet.

What? I bet the definition of "poet" is "one who writes poems." It's a circular argument.

There was a second definition: "writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm." Yeah, whatever. Here's what I think that means: Something that rhymes.

All the English teachers reading this are pulling out their hair, screaming into the void that poems don't need to rhyme. On that, I'll give them partial credit because, for instance, we all learned that haikus needn't rhyme.

But here's a memorable haiku:

What is a poem?

Is it words that just go on?

No. There must be rhymes.

Isn't that proof enough? Isn't it clear that when a haiku – the only exception to Stanhope's Poems Must Rhyme Rule – says that poems must rhyme? That's as good as Webster's Dictionary.

So we can agree, right? It's fine to write flowery prose. It's fine to write beautiful odes to nature or love or the hit-and-run play or finding a parking spot at the Post Office. But those are not poems. Those are nice, pretty things to write.

Poems have to rhyme. They had to rhyme when Homer wrote "The Odyssey" (first line: This is the story of Achilles/Who could have played outfield for the Phillies / He went out the door / And went off to war / And got an injury that gives me the willies."). Poems also rhymed when Shakespeare was writing them (highlight from "Hamlet": "To be or not to be, that is the question; when you eat hot dogs you get indigestion.")

Finally, poems absolutely should rhyme when they're on "The Bachelor," which is the modern equivalent of Homer and Shakespeare's productions. By the way, Kaity "won," if that's how you define winning on that show.

Brad Stanhope is a poet. Reach him at bradstanhope@outlook.com.