Life is pocked-marked here and there with minor irritations that act as thorns just under the skin.

It’s inevitable, really, and depending on how you deal with these irritations, it can be an indicator to one’s personality.

For instance, I recently came down with my third cold this winter, which is unheard of for me. I usually average one and done every winter, so this year has been particularly irritating.

I handle illnesses as best I can, though several women I know as well as plenty of internet memes (you know those things that have a picture and words that are supposed to carry some deep truth about life — when true, that is) point out it’s more of a whine than anything.

They aren’t completely wrong. I have my share of whiny moments like the second time I got out of bed early Tuesday morning and almost tripped over not one but two cats. I would like to think what I said was highlighted by determined grunts of getting through said adversity, but really it was probably just a very 4-year-old version of, “Whyyyyy?”

Being sick, though, isn’t the biggest irritation in life; it just seems worse when compounded by other irritations.

After teasing me for a few days, the cold finally took hold in those wee hours of Tuesday morning and by Tuesday at 11 a.m. I had really just wanted to check out for the day.

But I needed food more than anything, so I drove home with visions of hash browns, eggs and sausage dancing in my head.

If I may divert for just a second, hash browns are the exact opposite of life’s irritations. They are life’s blessing. Some Sunday I’m going to devote an entire day to coming up with different recipes for hash browns. I might even open a restaurant some day based on hash browns called Hashed Out. It will be the second restaurant I open after Leftovers — an eating establishment dedicated to leftovers.

Just think on that for a moment. A restaurant of nothing but chili, stew, chicken, stir fry, etc. — leftovers. You can literally come to me for cold pizza.

How is that not awesome?

Back to the topic at hand.

Coming home I was greeted by Buster and Nemi — the two cats I nearly tripped over earlier in the column. It was a nice welcome and I was feeling a little better.

I got right to work on the heavenly hash browns and then promptly peeled my finger when peeling the potato. I didn’t like where this was going.

Potato peelers hurt — quite frankly — like hell. Still, in my mind, I was seeing crispy, buttery potatoes topped with sausage and then topped with two eggs with runny yolks. And let me tell you: I have a very healthy imagination.

And … I broke an egg yolk. I’m pretty sure I gave up at that point.

I’m sick, I’m cranky, I’m tired, I have plenty of work piling up — is it too much to ask to have two eggs with runny yolks drowning my sausage and eggs? No … no it is not.

It’s a crime against America is what it is, and now suddenly those small irritations in life had me on the verge of crisis management.

Okay, maybe I am a little dramatic when I’m sick, but we’re talking food here. It’s one of life’s great equalizers to having a bad day. Food makes everything better, except lutefisk. I know the Norse needed food like lutefisk when crossing the ocean, but that’s no excuse. It’s just a culinary crime, and no amount of butter-dunking murder will change that.

That, right there is the core as to why my day went south so quickly. My eggs not the lutefisk. If lutefisk ever gets to the point of ruining my life, then I have become pretty desperate.

I was turning to one of the few things that might make me feel better aside from heavy doses of cold medicine. Which on that note, why with all of the science we have, can we not make a descent tasting cold medicine?

After peeling my finger and punching a hole in my egg I was ready to close the day out and who could blame me?

I guess that should probably be enough whining for the moment. Guess I’ll go celebrate the fact that I can breathe for the time being.