Days spent lounging in bed, reading a bit, watching the odd movie, but mostly sleeping - ah, the life. Well, except for the mounds of snotty, soggy tissues piled in and around the trash bin, the cough suppressants, vapor rubs and the constant hacking sound that is apparently a primitive form of communication verbalized by a small alien who is now inhabiting my chest.
Yes, yes, I have no right to complain. When it comes to sickness, I have been incredibly lucky thus far. I have no illnesses which are immediately life-threatening. I have insurance and paid leave which can be used when I am sick. And I rarely get sick at all. I believe the last time I took sick leave was three bosses ago. Not bad for someone who is the antithesis of germaphobic. (Five-second rule? Please. If I didn't just see a roach running across the spot where it landed, and it's not embedded in dirt, I'll eat it.)
So I've no reason to complain about coming down with classic head-crud this season. After all, I've seen co-workers and friends dropping like flies for months now, and this particular bug did have the courtesy to wait until I actually had some time to deal with it - post-holidays and all that. And as for the practical stuff, yes, I have tea and cough drops and - talk about timing - had just made a pot of garlic soup the day before I came down with this. Had to cancel very few plans and my co-workers pitched in where my clients are concerned for the one or two who needed something immediately.
I think, really, it's the indignity of it all. Mind you, I live alone, so no one else gets to witness said indignity, but just walking past a mirror and noticing my swollen eyes, lobster-red nose, and the fact that my hair has taken on a life of its own since I've not had the energy to style - or wash - it, makes me feel rather like an orphaned waif on Dicken's London streets. I envision myself sticking a grimy cup filled with stubby pencils under the noses of passers-by while I snivel my sales pitch, wiping my runny nose on my ratty bathrobe cuff every third word or so. The fact that I've completely lost my appetite and everything I eat tastes the same (gruel?) adds to the picture.
The movies have lied to us. Again! I think of Meg Ryan in "You've Got Mail", all curled up in bed with her own mound of tissues, red-nosed and sniffly, looking adorable and loveable and heroine-like. I think of all the Camilles, dying slowly of consumption, whose own chest-inhabiting aliens communicated in genteel, discrete coughs. And I look in the mirror and think, "This is why I live alone. So I can look hideous and sound disgusting and exhibit not one single adorable, loveable trait when my head and my lungs are battling to see which can explode first. But I do live alone.
So for all anyone knows, I've been curled up with a big mug of steaming tea, sniffling delicately into an initialed lace handkerchief, occasionally emitting a whisper of a sneeze, looking wan but perfectly coiffed and dressed in an antique silk dressing gown for the last few days. This is my story. And no one can disprove it!
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