You can't fool us all... well, you can, but its not nice.

This particular rant is directed at the people who do the flavoring for cold medication. Yes, that does include the ones in your local pharmacy who have the pretty rainbow colored flavoring syrups. Y'all is some sick bastards. Where in the name of all that is holy do you people come up with these flavorings?? No in fact, to the people who made the NyQuil I just took a dose of, No it most certainly is NOT "Cherry Flavored". I have tasted cherries, I am very fond of them. I like Ranier Cherries the best, followed by Maraschino and lastly the Bing Cherry. I don't know if there are other varieties but I have had those three many, many times and I know what they taste like. Your OTC meds, do not taste like that. Perhaps you went into some remote forest and stumbled upon a hideout bunker from decades gone by and inside there you found a tin - yes tin, not "flavor saver" lined aluminum - can of cherries that was rusty and swollen, but you thought "Eh, what's the worst if could taste like?" and opened it anyway. If indeed that is the case, then my sincere apologies to you because you definitely nailed it. It must take a special kind of mental capacity to come up with a way to make an already sick person, who is feeling all of the symptoms listed on the side of your falsely comforting label, reduce to having spasms and twitches just to choke down medication on the hopes that they will feel better. How does that work anyway? Do you happen to encounter someone who is just outright sick and miserable and then think to yourself... "Hmmm, I would like to help them feel better, BUT I'd like to see them work for it a bit first." ... is that how it is?? How does one create that nasty-very-NOT-cherry flavor and then walk away saying 'yeah, I did my job' with no thought given to those who ingest this stuff? Not only that, but can you identify exactly which ingredient - or combination of those - is the one(s) responsible for the contortions and flailing that comes with taking the meds? I can no longer take OTC meds in front of my kids. There is just no way to hide the grimace that will come after you toss back a shot of this stuff. Pretty soon the old "Yeah kids, this is easy to take. Great flavor and I feel better already!" is going to fail. How am I supposed to convince my kids that the meds will at least relieve the symptoms enough to allow them to rest and get over the illness when I can just barely swallow a dose of it? I drink Jager Bombs like water. No faces, no grimacing, no tongue hanging out and head shaking - just toss it down and 'yes I will have another, thank you kindly' and I can do that for quite a while. Have you tasted those? They are not all that pleasant. In fact I have said and heard that Jager tastes a good bit like the original NyQuil in the dark green color. Why is it I can toss those down all night long and be good to go, but try to get meds in me and oh hell, it is ON now! Sputtering all over the place, writhing in some weird mix of pain in my gut, bile in my throat and my tastebuds trying to commit suicide is not exactly conducive to getting the kiddos to just take the damn medicine. Okay the NyQuil is kicking in and I am having a hard time making these sentences fit together coherently, so I am off to bed. Fortunately I have some DayQuil in there too. Oh, look... it is Orange flavored. Or...is it??