Fie! A Pox Upon Me!

Last Friday, despite the best efforts of Duke's only attractive undergrad female and her...otherworldly...attributes, I began to fall ill. It was one of those illnesses that had an onset of about thirty seconds. One moment I'm bipping along, happy as can be, the next it feels like one of my eyes in drooping into my sock and my head is suddenly filled with a highly viscous, putrid yellow jelly.

It was the normal type of illness: stuffy head, lots of mucus, sore throat, lots of mucus, rattling cough, lots of mucus, sneezing. I'd touch on the mucus factor again, but I don't want to beat a dead horse, mostly because dead horses get turned into glue which just reminds me of more mucus.

The big thing, however, was that I was just drained of energy. I spent a lot of time in bed and on the couch. Okay, so I spent more time than usual on the couch and in bed. Smartass.

I am now, if not fully convalesced, at least doing much better. I feel pretty good, truth be told. I've still got the gummy, semi-dry boogs stuck in my nose, which are actually kind of fun to pick out and flick at my kids. The thing that's annoying is the ever-present smell of stale piss that seems to permeate snot as it dries into drywall putty inside your nose. I blow it out, and suddenly everything smells of stale urine. I know it's not me, because I haven't pissed myself in the past couple of days (at least), and I'm bathed. It's the stupid, lousy mucus clinging to the insides of my nasal and sinus passages. It has to be.

*changes underwear just to be safe*

However, it's not the thick, gummy paste stuck in my head that is the most annoying thing about being sick. Sure, it's annoying being sick, but at least my kids are old enough they can entertain themselves when I'm down like I was over the weekend. Also, they bring me medicine and drinks. I suspect it has something to do with the proximity of Christmas and not so much any great love they have for their father.

No, this most annoying thing of which I speak is a distinctly male issue. When I start to run a fever, everything is cold. I shiver. I feel an annoying cold that I just can't seem to shake. My entire body starts going into cold mode. I shiver. I shake. I huddle close.

However, my scrotum doesn't. It recognizes that the brain has cranked the old internal temperature up a few degrees and, in an attempt to protect the optimal sperm-production temperature, my scrote dives. Oh, sure, Captain Longsword turtles up into his hidey-hole, but not my Balzac. The old coinpurse dives for my knee. I have to hitch it up over my shoulder in order to walk to the kitchen.

As you can imagine, this leads to some rather embarrassing moments for me personally. While trying to sleep off the affects of cold medication and to recover from the heavy fatigue that was weighing down on me, my wife slipped under the covers with me and patted my thigh. Brushing the massive bulge on the inside of my thigh, a look of wonder twinkles in her eye and she draws near.

"Oh," she purrs into my ear, "are you happy to see me?"

I look over through a haze of cold medications and muster a beguiling smile.

"No, sorry, dear, I'm just feverish."

Fortunately, I'm feeling better now, so my wife can return to her regularly-scheduled disappointment.