Most of you have probably heard about how scandalously overmedicated we Americans are -- handing out antibiotics indiscriminately has produced superbugs that threaten to defy treatment. But less widely reported -- although, in my opinion, no less newsworthy -- is how direly undermedicated *I* am. Instead of superbugs, though, this injustice just produces gallons and gallons of snot.

It's almost like clockwork: every year in late-ish January I get sick, then a little better, then back to my original level of sickness, then better still, then descend into zombielike state of near-death that feels like a giant boiled lasagna noodle has been draped over every hole in my head. By the fourth week or so, when I finally drag my sorry carcass to the doctor, it's started to clear up on its own.

Now, I realize that antibiotics may not be the answer to all this -- it's a long but relatively mild illness without much fever or exotically-colored phlegm. Odds are that more often than not, my January illness-du-jour is viral. But I can't help but remember my dad telling me a story about suffering a similar problem, and having it resolved by a family friend administering a large injection of penicillin one year, in advance of his annual cold. He still gets sick from time to time, of course, but his particular yearly affliction never came back.

I bring all this up because I'm sick. I started feeling tired and achy yesterday. I thought it was just the usual Sunday malaise -- thoughts about wasting a day watching football segue so easily into thoughts about wasting a life watching TV -- but around 5AM this morning it was clear that parts of my throat were significantly larger than I usually prefer. It also occurred to me that just this Saturday I had watched the Rose Bowl with, among others, the ever-charming but, it must be said, potentially disease-ridden SueAndNotU. So I'm on high alert, illness-wise, and immediately made an appointment with a doctor. Only thing is, I haven't been to the doctor since moving into the city, what with being a hale, hearty, health-insurance-underwriting twentysomething. So off to the Blue Cross website to find a new sawbones.

I think I've found my guy. He's a little cold, and a little off-putting, but on the sole basis of a "very red looking" throat he immediately gave me a rubber-stamped prescription for some brandname amoxicillin named Augmentin XR. I mean that literally, by the way: he had a rubber stamp for it. Then, to my confusion, he gave me another prescription for the same thing. And this time he used a sticker! Oh, man.

Between those two scripts and an extra two days' worth of free Augmentin samples, I am practically swimming in antibiotic horse-pills, Scrooge McDuck-style. Bring it on, my microscopic foes. I'm ready.