Line #29 Main/DefinitelyJustACold


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9	->''"The first three 'symptoms you should not ignore' were: rectal bleeding; loss of height; and sudden blindness! ''Who ignores sudden blindness?!'' Who sits in the office at lunchtime going 'Oh, who turned out the lights? Oh, no, I can't see a thing, it's awful, I'm no use to anyone today. I'll answer phones, that's all I can do, that's all I'll be good for today. Oh, don't make a fuss, don't make a fuss, don't make a fuss.'"''
10	-->-- '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMvMb90hem8#t=285s Dara O'Briain]]'''
11
12	One of the characters has come down with something. They may be having mysterious fainting spells, or losing time, or too weak to stand, but whatever the symptoms, [[ObviouslyNotFine it's clear]] it's serious. If the influence of mystical power is implied, you would think they'd have cause to worry and confide in their friends about their suspicions. Or at least wonder why they're sick.
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14	Actually, the more obvious it's not a normal illness, the less likely they'll mention it. Heck, they might even [[FeigningHealthiness pretend they're completely healthy]]. Even if your cast includes some of the most helpful doctors or mind readers, the character won't bring it up for quite a few episodes in a row, constantly making the excuse they're just a bit under the weather. This manages to convince their [[IdiotBall unusually thick friends]].
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16	For the reason it never ''is'' "just a cold", see PerfectHealth, a subtrope of the LawOfConservationOfDetail.
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18	This may be used for one or more {{Sick Episode}}s. This may develop into either a SoapOperaDisease or an IncurableCoughOfDeath. If caused by contact with the bad guys, it may be AllergicToEvil. Often used as an excuse by a ZombieInfectee in denial. Opposite of MistakenForDying, where characters assume the worst when it ''is'' definitely just a cold.
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20	----
21	!!Examples:
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23	[[foldercontrol]]
24
25	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
26	* In ''Manga/BokuNoHatsukoiWoKimiNiSasagu'', Kou suffers numerous headaches after [[spoiler: the car accident]], but he brushes them off saying he's just tired. [[spoiler: They're symptoms of brain hemorrhage, that end up making him faint and enter brain death state.]]
27	* In ''Literature/DeepLove'' [[spoiler:Ayu]] believes it's a fever when it clearly isn't. [[spoiler:It's AIDS.]]
28	%%* Joe near the end of the ''Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman'' series.
29	* Asa Shigure from ''VisualNovel/{{Shuffle}}'', who denies there's a problem even as she's intermittently losing consciousness in the hospital. She can easily cure herself with a simple spell, but she ''doesn't want to hurt her mom's feelings'' [[spoiler: because Ama is an ArtificialHuman who went through horrible magical experiments in her past.]] [[spoiler: Asa's insistence on not using her magic powers leads to a borderline SuperPowerMeltdown, and Rin has to TakeAThirdOption by ''stabbing himself'' to force Asa to use her magic on him.]]
30	* Watanuki in ''Manga/XxxHolic'', when his friendship with the ghost woman is making him extremely ill, to the point of coughing up blood, insists that it is "just a cold" — even when Doumeki repeatedly asks him if he's sure his symptoms don't have to do with "spirits and stuff".
31	* ''Manga/OokuTheInnerChambers'': Emmonosuke keeps getting headaches which he attributes to the stress of being Tsunayoshi's chief advisor and the intrigues that go with politics. [[spoiler: He dies of an aneurysm the day after he [[SexSignalsDeath finally makes love to Tsunayoshi.]]]]
32	[[/folder]]
33
34	[[folder:Comic Books]]
35	* ''ComicBook/WhenTheWindBlows'': The comic (and its animated adaptation) is about an elderly British couple who survive a nuclear bombing. As they try to survive in the aftermath, they experience severe headaches, dizziness, vomiting and more, which they write off as [[StiffUpperLip being the result of shock and their changed living situation]], when they are actually dying from radiation poisoning.
36	[[/folder]]
37
38	[[folder:Asian Animation]]
39	* In ''Animation/LeafieAHenIntoTheWild'' Leafie starts exhibiting signs of illness when her son is a teenager. It starts with a sneeze but she ignores it. Hens are not meant to live in marshes. [[spoiler:In the end, Leafie dies in a HeroicSacrifice by letting herself be eaten because she knows she wouldn't survive the winter anyway]].
40	[[/folder]]
41
42	[[folder:Fan Works]]
43	* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'': in the sequel, [[spoiler: Harry]] immediately picks out Clark's persistent cold/flu type illness as this, on the grounds that his HealingFactor should give him PerfectHealth.
44	* ''FanFic/RoyalBusiness'': Spike sees that Pinkie Pie is looking ill. It's actually the long-term effects of being wounded by Red Haze the Dragon in ''FanFic/{{Dragonshyness}}''.
45	[[/folder]]
46
47	[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]
48	* In ''Film/CabinFever'', Marcy discovers some tender red marks on her back while washing her face. [[AsYouKnow There's a flesh-eating disease going around, by the way.]] But Marcy instead seems to believe these marks came from her friend Paul fondling her too vigorously when they recently made love and even chastises him for this. To add injury to insult, Marcy had (unbeknownst to either of them) just infected Paul with the deadly disease, because she insisted they [[ButWeUsedACondom didn't need a condom]] because [[BlatantLies she claimed she was healthy]].
49	* ''Film/District9'': Wikus is exposed to an unknown black substance in possession of aliens, which causes him to drip black from his nose, vomit black fluid, lose fingernails, and look like he's suffering pneumonia, and shits his pants. He ignores the symptoms because he's trying his best to make a good impression after a recent promotion. He refuses treatment so as not to look weak or incompetent to his superiors.
50	* In ''Film/FindingNeverland'', Sylvia Llewelyn Davies tries to pass off her illness as a cold but she doesn't fool her son Peter, who lashes out about being lied to.
51	* ''Film/TheKillerThatStalkedNewYork'' (a 1950 film {{Very Loosely Based\|OnATrueStory}} on the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_New_York_City_smallpox_outbreak 1947 New York City smallpox outbreak]]): Sheila needs to lean against a lamppost to stay upright, but still turns down help from a police officer. She proceeds to nearly faint, so he walks her to the health office next door to see a doctor. She then tries to sneak off before seeing the doctor. Dr. Wood gives her some medicine and instructs her to see her own doctor. Her condition keeps getting worse, but she doesn't seek medical attention until more than a week later, and then only because she had accidentally left her medicine behind when she ran from the police and needed more. She goes back to Dr. Wood and is shocked when he tells her that she has smallpox, despite the massive vaccination campaign due to the outbreak that she couldn't possibly have missed.
52	* In ''Film/{{REC}}'', the little girl in the movie isn't infected with latent zombieism... she merely has angina! Honest! Of course, the cast do eventually put two and two together and confront the mother about it, who is [[spoiler:bitten to death by her daughter as the infection finally takes hold]].
53	%%* In ''Film/RiseOfThePlanetOfTheApes'', a scientist who works with viruses assumes this, much to the world's detriment.
54	* In ''Film/{{Slither}}'', the increasingly deforming marks, welts, and swelling caused by infestation with the alien worms are invariably excused as "bee stings" or "bug bites". Even when the bearers of the bug bites are shambling around like zombies, eating dead neighbors, or turning into amorphous tentacle monsters.
55	* ''Film/TwiceRoundTheDaffodils'': Despite suffering from tuberculosis, John doesn't seem to care nor think he needs time to recover, rudely telling anyone who'll listen that he's not ill:
56	-->'''John:''' Er, I-I'm only 'ere for observation, I-I'm not ill. I-I've bit of a cough, isn't tuberculosis, is it?
57	-->'''Nurse Catty:''' I hope not, Mr. Rhodes. Get into bed, please.
58	-->'''John:''' ''No'', I-I-I'm not ill. The only time I've ever been in ''bed'' in the ''daytime'' is when I've been on the night shift at the ''pits''. I've never 'ad a day's illness in my ''life'', but I shall very likely ''catch'' something being stuck away in a place like ''this''.
59	[[/folder]]
60
61	[[folder:Literature]]
62	* ''Literature/AnnalsOfTheWesternShore'': Melle when she's first suffering the effects of [[spoiler:the Drum wasting gift]] in ''Gifts'', but it quickly progresses past her ability to power through the increasing weakness of body.
63	* In ''Arrow's Fall'' of the ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'' series, Herald Dirk claims his respiratory symptoms are this, after weeks of self-destructive behavior including [[DrowningMySorrows drinking heavily]], standing hopelessly outside in the rain, and generally being miserable. He does this for two reasons: he's pining with unrequited love for Herald Talia, whom he mistakenly believes to be in a LoveTriangle with his best friend, Kris; and he's trying to cope with the tragic death of a trainee who was under his instruction. The fact that the person who is most suited to help him sort out this mess is [[TheEmpath Talia]], the person he least wants to face in person, compounds the problem, which lasts until he collapses... from pneumonia. The Healers who attend him as he recovers spare no effort in telling him what an idiot he was being.
64	%%* Jem to Tessa in ''Literature/TheInfernalDevices'', when she asks about his health.
65	* In ''Literature/SidStillsBluesThreeQuartersInTheBagInAlphabetCity'', when Sid starts coughing, he initially brushes it off. It turns out that he has lung cancer.
66	* In Creator/StephenKing's [[DoorStopper sweeping novel]] ''Literature/TheStand'', events start out with a [[FreakLabAccident security systems malfunction in a lab]] letting an [[SyntheticPlague engineered biological weapon]] to get loose. In the earliest stages, the disease (which would come to be known as Captain Trips) would look just like a cold, with flu, cough, sneezing, sniffles, and stuffy noses. Within a few days, the symptoms would escalate to deadly levels. Many characters think that they caught a cold, and before long...
67	* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear: The Planet Plague'' has Tash, feeling [[VirusVictimSymptoms hot and irritable and with a growing rashy lump on her arm]], assuming she just has the flu. In fairness her brother has it and she thought she'd just been inoculated with a preventative vaccine for it, and she asked a doctor - but since that doctor had been the one to infect her [[spoiler: with TheVirus intended to turn her into a BlobMonster]], he said it was nothing that wouldn't clear up on its own.
68	* ''Literature/{{Temeraire}}'': In ''Throne of Jade,'' there's an amusing little subplot where Laurence hears about a nasty cold going around the English dragons, and many jokes are made about how dragons are such big babies when they're sick. Temeraire comes down with the cold, and it's played largely for laughs. In ''Empire of Ivory,'' it turns out that [[spoiler:the "cold" is actually a form of dragon tuberculosis that's slowly and painfully killing every dragon in England, and if they hadn't stopped at exactly the right port in Africa and prepared exactly the right mushroom for Temeraire on a whim, he and every other English dragon would have died. And for that matter, since Temeraire was on his way to China, all of the Chinese dragons would probably have died, too.]]
69	* ''Literature/TheWindupGirl''. Anderson has been given immunity to most diseases, so ignores the IncurableCoughOfDeath which he puts down to injuries he got from being tortured earlier.
70
71	[[/folder]]
72
73	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
74	* ''Series/OneThousandWaysToDie'': A postal worker upset about being made to retire starts stealing packages from people's doorsteps. He steals a package mailed to a local judge and gets hit with anthrax spores when he opens it. Even as he continues to get sicker, he refuses to get medical attention and dies a week later while in the middle of another theft.
75	* In ''Series/TwentyFour'', the [[spoiler: cheater gets a bloody nose. He thinks it's just a bloody nose, but it keeps going. It's the early manifestation of a fatal virus.]]
76	* In ''Series/{{Chernobyl}}'', Dyatlov is in the middle of shouting down the that the core has exploded and says he'll go look at it himself when he throws up on the table and collapses--an early sign of Acute Radiation Syndrome. Bryukhanov and Fomin immediately decide it's because he was around the feedwater for too long.
77	* In the ''Series/{{Community}}'' episode "[[Recap/CommunityS2E06Epidemiology Epidemiology]]", a number of guests at the college's Halloween party come down with a mystery ailment whose symptoms include fever and stomachaches. Rich, a doctor, claims the symptoms point to food poisoning which the dean told him to rule out. Then Star-Burns enters the quarantine area and is grabbed and bitten by the infected Pierce who has a bloodthirsty look on his face. Rich then rules out food poisoning. Though, funnily enough, [[spoiler:it technically ''is'' food poisoning, caused by infected taco meat the Dean bought from an army surplus store -- which, of course, is why he wanted that ruled out. It's just that the symptoms of ''this'' type of food poisoning -- implied to have been created intentionally as some sort of bioweapon -- are less "vomiting and diarrhea" and more "becoming a TechnicallyLivingZombie"]].
78	* ''Series/DoctorWho'': After Barbara is poisoned in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E1PlanetOfGiants Planet of Giants]]", she initially attempts to write off her symptoms as some sort of minor illness.
79	* ''Series/{{Helix}}'' revolves around a CDC team dealing with an outbreak of TheVirus at a remote ResearchInc.
80	** Early in the mission, junior CDC team member Sarah begins to exhibit a hand tremor, which senior scientist Julia incorrectly interprets as a symptom of infection until Sarah tests herself and appears clean. Sarah blames fatigue, and the viewer is likely to attribute it to delayed fear reaction from a particularly trauma-filled day. But in the closing scenes of "274", she pops pills in her quarters and reveals a large vertical scar on her back.
81	** Also in "274", after being infected by PatientZero Peter, Julia herself goes into denial and tells team leader Alan she fainted in the shower due to fatigue, later projecting and thus accusing Sarah of being a ZombieInfectee herself.
82	* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
83	** In the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E12TheDeadlyYears The Deadly Years]]", Kirk visits sick bay with some aches and pains that he attributes to "muscular strain". Bones scans him and tells him it's an advanced case of arthritis, which turns out to be the first sign of a RapidAging affliction.
84	** In ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'''s final season, the Founders contract a debilitating disease that affects only them. Odo, who had joined with the disease-ridden Head Founder, kept the fact that the disease was progressing rapidly a secret for several episodes. Bashir synthesizes a cure for the disease, disobeying orders to do so (because it could fall into the Founders' hands). [[spoiler:Ironically, it was the friendly offer of this cure to the Founders that ended the Dominion War.]] Played with in that at least one character figures out how sick he is, but doesn't mention it because there is no cure and she knows that he prefers to keep such things private.
85	* Parodied in ''Series/ThatMitchellAndWebbLook'' with an increasingly ill-looking man with a severe cough who insists it's just that (while sad music plays in the background). Until one day his love interest shows up at the train station to meet him and he's not there. Then he shows up looking perfectly fine. The Edwardian costume drama film it's supposed to be from is called ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Man Who Has a Cough and It's Just a Cough and He's Fine]]''.
86	-->'''Woman:''' Look, I thought you had TB!\
87	'''Man:''' TB? No, I'd have mentioned that. God! No, it's just a cough.\
88	'''Woman:''' Right... [[SophisticatedAsHell wish I hadn't let you do me now.]]
89	* In ''Series/TheWestWing'', when President Bartlet collapses in the Oval Office, the First Lady (who is a doctor) immediately cuts her trip short and flies back to DC. She insists that he just has the flu and a high fever. As Leo points out, "[You came back] because the President has a temperature. The President's not in nursery school." She then confesses that the President secretly has [[spoiler:multiple sclerosis]].
90	[[/folder]]
91
92	[[folder:Video Games]]
93	* In ''VideoGame/{{Deltarune}}'', Rudolph is hospitalized and is implied to have been there for a while. He tells Kris he's just in for some tests because the doctor found "some crap," but insists it's nothing to worry about. However, it's heavily implied that it very much ''is'' something to worry about, and he knows it, but he's downplaying how serious it is, at least while talking to Kris and Noelle (both of whom are kids, the latter of whom is his ''[[DaddysGirl daughter]]'').
94	* Tracer Tong in ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' develops a cough, but otherwise doesn't make too much mention of it until X51.
95	* In ''VideoGame/Disgaea3AbsenceOfJustice'', Almaz goes with this excuse when he gets infected by an incurable curse that is slowly killing him. [[spoiler: He gets better as long as it's not the bad ending.]]
96	* In ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIX'', the town of Coffinwell is afflicted with a curse that makes many of the townspeople ill. Catarrhina, the wife of the doctor who helps the heroes stop the contagion, frequently coughs and mentions feeling faint though excuses it every time. [[spoiler:Naturally, she's the only one who dies from her illness.]]
97	* In ''VideoGame/IWasATeenageExocolonist'', Geranium has an allergic reaction during Pollen season that gets progressively worse, but doesn't attempt to control it. [[spoiler:This is because it's being caused by a mind-affecting fungus.]]
98	* At the end of ''VideoGame/Persona3'', the gameplay notes that the main character is very tired. [[spoiler: He dies a couple of days later.]]
99	* ''VideoGame/PokemonConquest'' has Hanbei use a similar excuse on Hideyoshi when asked why he's coughing up a storm. Kanbei doesn't buy it and for good reasons. His real-life counterpart was diagnosed with tuberculosis and died from it.
100	* ''VideoGame/PotionPermit'': While Garret's family is fully aware of him being in a wheelchair after an accident, Garret refuses to accept that the injury is permanent and incurable. When the Chemist checks on him in his first Friendship Event, he tells them to tell his family that he's "fine", which they do despite knowing how grave his injury is. [[spoiler:In reality, Garret had long accepted his injury and [[KeepingTheHandicap refuses to be "cured"]], but he only plays along to Mercy's attempts to treat him so as not to hurt her feelings.]]
101	* The latter stages of ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2'' sees [[spoiler:Arthur Morgan poorly try to hide his tuberculosis diagnosis, even as it's quickly progressing from the physical torture and damp environments he's endured (in the past few months he's lived both in a swamp and on a tropical island, though not by choice), because he doesn't want to burden the gang with taking care of him. Every time someone else brings it up, he'll usually wave it off or deny that he's any weaker than he used to be, all while visibly wasting away before their eyes; he can only bring himself to admit it to the people he trusts most to keep the secret. Depending on the player's choices, he will either finally succumb to TB or be violently killed while on death's door.]]
102	* Colette in ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' kept her [[spoiler: Angel Toxicosis]] secret for a long portion of the game.
103	** Repeated by her in a later part of the game where she thinks she slept wrong because her neck and shoulder feel stiff. Turns out [[spoiler: [[BodyToJewel her skin is crystallizing into a huge exsphere]]]].
104	* ''VideoGame/TraumaCenterAtlus'':
105	** During a Diagnosis mission in ''Trauma Team'', Joshua tries to claim nothing is wrong with him. The nurse is not fooled. Neither is Gabe. [[spoiler:Much to Gabe's dismay, he has Wermer's Syndrome.]]
106	** In an earlier Diagnosis, Jacob Tillman constantly claims nothing is wrong with him. Unlike Joshua, who eventually admits he's not well, he fights you to the end, claiming that nothing is wrong. As it turns out, [[spoiler:he has a serious heart condition]].
107	* Shion of ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'' insists to the other characters that her fainting spells are just fatigue. [[spoiler:It's really symptoms of a condition that comes with coming into contact with U-DO, the same condition that her mother was afflicted with.]]
108	[[/folder]]
109
110	[[folder:Visual Novels]]
111	* In ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony'', [[spoiler:Ultimate Astronaut [[HotBlooded Kaito Momota]] ''insists'' that he only has a cold after [[BloodFromTheMouth coughing up blood]] in front of nearly everyone, falsely theorizing that he must have coughed hard enough to cut his throat and bluffing [[RobotBuddy K1-B0]] on how probable that is for a human. Of course, that doesn't explain his movement being hampered enough that his attempt at cleaning [[MagnificentBastard Kokichi]]'s clock was turned around on him... and [[SecretlyDying Kaito knows this perfectly well]]. Poor dear]]...
112	* In ''VisualNovel/DaughterForDessert'', the protagonist remembered that [[spoiler:Lainie was coughing around the time of their visits to her family lawyer. He didn’t pay any attention to it at the time, but unbeknownst to him, a doctor had given her a serious enough diagnosis to get her a check from $250,000 after she’d been cut off. She eventually died while giving birth to Amanda, and the money went to start the protagonist’s diner.]]
113	[[/folder]]
114
115	[[folder:Webcomics]]
116	%%* Alan of ''Webcomic/TheDreamer'' has an ominous cough, and has sweat on his brow, but insists that he's fine.
117	* Hanna of ''Webcomic/HannaIsNotABoysName'' has vomited blood, become visibly weak, and even passed out cold on his job and still insists he's fine.
118	* This is subverted with Belkar from ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick''. After his [[RestrainingBolt Mark of Justice]] is activated, he experiences severe vomiting and can barely walk. Haley is about to ditch him as a liability when the group crosses the boundary of a memory charm. Now none of them can remember that Belkar activated the Mark of Justice, and his sickness is written off as a bad cold or similar.
119	[[/folder]]
120
121	[[folder:Western Animation]]
122	* Zigzagged in one episode of ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheSeries''. The illness that Genie gets ''is'' Definitely Just a Cold, but the problem is, when genies get colds, [[PowerIncontinence they can't control their magic]]. ''Big'' problem. So while Jasmine has to watch over a sick genie whose magic threatens to level the city (and in one scene, launches about ten {{Forced Transformation}}s at her in a row in a fit of sneezing) Aladdin has to find a gemstone that can cure in a forbidden temple guarded by a divine, golden guardian, without Genie's help. (Fortunately, the guardian [[RiddlingSphinx prefers brainteasers to physical fighting]].)
123	* Zigzagged in ''WesternAnimation/TheMask'' episode "To Have and Have Snot". Stanley catches a cold from Peggy, and it affects the Mask in ways that would ultimately become ''fatal'' if he wears it for too long, experiencing 7 symptoms before it finally kills him. And as irony would have it, Pretorius creates a giant mucus monster that is practically made out of Peggy's cold germs. Fortunately, the Mask and Peggy do discover a cure for his cold; ingesting Bavarian wood mites. Peggy is able to get the cure to him in time, but he almost doesn’t make it.
124	* In the first season of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', a [[ZombieApocalypse Zombie Outbreak]] is mistaken for a nasty case of Pink Eye by most residents, long after the truth should have been blindingly obvious.
125	[[/folder]]
126
127	[[folder:Real Life]]
128	* A month prior to his death, Music/EazyE admitted himself to the hospital for what he suspected was a case of asthma. He soon learned he was in the advanced stages of AIDS.
129	* People who saw Creator/JimHenson just prior to his death noted of him complaining of a sore throat, but despite the insistence of others, refused to see a doctor until he began coughing up blood. It was discovered he had bacterial pneumonia, and had he sought medical attention just hours sooner, he may have survived.
130	* Lemmy from Music/{{Motorhead}}, in his final days, had been ill and had only known himself to have diabetes, until after months and months of checkups and only mere days before his demise, had been finally found to be in an advanced stage of cancer.
131	* In the fall of 1983, Creator/AndyKaufman began persistently coughing for a month straight. When his family brought up the matter during Thanksgiving, he said that he already consulted his doctor and was told that it was nothing to worry about. However, their comments motivated him to see another physician in LA afterwards, upon which he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Within two months, his health rapidly declined, and he died the following May.
132	* During the Covid-19 pandemic, countless people died and/or spread the virus because they were reluctant to get tested for the disease; after all, a positive result meant being quarantined for days or weeks, and most working people couldn't afford to take that time off. So symptoms were shrugged off as "just a bad cold".
133	[[/folder]]

Context Main / DefinitelyJustACold