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.

Ugh

It's been a long, long week.

What's that? It's only Thursday?

You're fucked, buddy.

Not really, because my wife still has a herniated disk in her neck. My son got better, my daughter got sick, my daughter got better, my son got sick--what the fuck???

Now wife is also sick.

And I have a sore throat.

So, yeah. The Happiness Express has slowed to a fucking crawl--and not even a pub crawl because A) I can't afford stuff like "alcohol" or "cover charges" or "hush money" or "a good attorney because I can't seem to keep from taking my cock out and showing everyone at the bar but WOULDYOULOOKATTHESIZEOFTHISTHING!!!1!" and B) I have no friends to go drinking with. The last part of A might have something to do with that.

Sadly, it's true. Happy Cat is all out of Happy right now. However, if you let me him sniff your panties or if you send me him boob shots, he might perk right the fuck up.

*sigh*

And now it's only five minutes later on Thursday.

Just to Let You Know I'm Not Dead...Yet

My son has been sick for five days. Five long days. He's stopped with the 3 o'clock wailing that he's going to throw up. He hasn't stopped coughing the cough of a chain-smoking former lot lizard living on borrowed time at the local retirement village. Regardless, I said fuck all to the continued health of his classmates and sent him off to school. He--and whatever it is he's carrying--is the educational system's problem now. I'm at work, with the phone lifted off the hook, a light strain of "la la la la la I can't hear you" being uttered in the round to avoid mistakenly hearing the phone ring.

My wife finally went to the doctor yesterday after two weeks of suffering through some sort of pinched-nerve thing which affected both the continued use of her left arm and the ability to put out. The other side-effect has been that she finds it difficult to get comfortable at night in the bed...a bed which she shares with me. Some nights, she merely shifts around, sighs heavily, and then shifts some more. Other nights, she's flopping around like a marlin that's just been heaved onto the deck of a fishing boat and is about to be gutted and turned into steaks...or a former child star on the floor of her rehab cell when someone turns the lights on without offering the proper warnings.

She's been given prednasone, which can sometimes lead to "inopportune arousal", or so I've been told. I shan't hold my breath, for even if that happens, the Reds are scheduled to sweep into to town for a four-game series this weekend. Please ignore the bulging forearms, though I am tempted to draw crudely-rendered stick-figure anchors on them while I hum inappropriate sea shanties.

This past weekend, I had two birthday parties to go to. One, I had to take my daughter to and which involved lots of swimming. The other was for my friend Joe's son, Joe. Creative, no? I also go to meet his dad, Joe, his sister, Jo, and his mom, Joanne. He's scheduled to become the father of a girl in October, whose name I can only imagine will be Josephine.

Anyway, in my hurry to hang out with Joe, I left my daughter's towel and--this is a far more pressing tragedy--a half-dozen of her silly bands at the party. This means I have to drive back out to the birthday celebrant's house and reclaim the towel as well as the silly bands. Priorities, you know.

My dear friend, Elliot, who you might know better as the Displaced Cheesehead, is on the list of people who I must sit and enjoy a meal with ere shuffling off this mortal coil. If this should also involve beverages of alcoholic nature as well as some sporting even, then I should be happy, however I'm not one to look gift horses in the mouth. Nor am I to look gift photography in the mouth, and Elliot provided me with the above image (via the website Oddly Specific). It is grand, and I concur with the photographer of the aforementioned door, "I entered the wrong major."

Speaking of cheeseheadedness, He Who Must Not Be Named has announced today that he's retiring. For reals this time. Maybe. I'm not sure. Perhaps. 50/50 at this point. Should Purple Voldemort finally be gone, I can only assume that someone torched his Wrangler Jeans horcrux, that Aaron Rogers is now the best quarterback in the NFC North, and that John Madden and Peter King are somewhere shedding silent tears with one another and snoodling in order to work through their desultory sadness.



P.S. If you are unfamiliar with the term, do not look up "snoodling" while at work. This is something to look up at home, preferably with the kids nearby, because it will give them an education. We can all agree that kids need more education, and this will provide it, even if the education is only "why not to drink heavily in college".

TMI Thursday: Payback's a Bitch

If this does not sate your thirst for awesome TMI stories, then check out all the other glorious tales of things we probably shouldn't tell at LiLu's home for the staunchy raunchy, TMI Thursdays!

You might remember that story I told a couple of weeks ago prior to the TMI hiatus about how I dated a girl named Margaret once. Oh, what a wonderful night she and I had together which culminated in me nearly puking on her while swooping in for a kiss. Oh, what gay and glorious days were those!

The universe, it seems, has a grand sense of humor. It seems that things like nearly puking on your date the first time you're together kind of evens out over time. Yes, that's right. I have another story of puking and dating.

For this one, we go back to that magical year before I started grad school, but after I had graduated from St. Joe. The Ex- was still living near me, and one night I went over to her house after work so I could eat something, get drunk, and fuck her lights out.

She met me at the door, hair disheveled, glasses on, bathrobe wrapped around her body, and, to top it off, the tip of her nose was pink and she was holding a wadded up tissue. I could tell right then that my plans after "eat something, get drunk" were not going to go quite as swimmingly as I had expected.

"I'm sick," she groaned, her voice dropped an octave by the combination of a sore throat and sinuses packed full of mucus. As if I wouldn't believe her, she sniffed. Hard and loud. I could hear snot moving inside her pretty little skull while she inhaled. *snuck*

"You sounded alright over the phone when I called during my break," I offered weakly, hoping that this was some kind of ruse but knowing that it wasn't.

"I had a sduvvy node earlier," she offered, stepping back and letting me into her den of pestilence. Fuzzy slippers missing the backs completed her ensemble. Her microwave beeped as I entered, signaling that the hot water for her tea was ready (Brits, please overlook the breach of protocol here). "Afder I god off de phone wid you, id god worse."

We moved into the house and went to the kitchen. "I have dum eggs-dra soop, if you wand id," she said as I began to prepare to eat. "Id's really gud."

"Is there anything I can do for you?" I asked her, ignoring her offer of sickness soup, pulling my dinner out of the bag. I lifted down a plate and set out my food while she made herself some tea.

"Feel sorry for me," she said, shuffling from the kitchen into the den, which also served as a dining room. I sat down on the couch and she sat next to me, sipping her tea and leaning against me. I turned on some basketball. She sipped her tea.

"You cood give me some fries," she offered pitifully. I let her pick at my food, figuring I was as good as infected. Though I wanted to run screaming from the hazy cloud of disease emanating from her body, I knew that that would be considered a dating faux pas in most circles. So, she sipped her tea and leaned against me and picked through my food with her disease-ridden fingers. Inside, I cried.

I finished up and sat back and let her lean into me fully. I slipped an arm around her. Now, I'm a man what appreciates his personal space, and sitting like this was a nuisance, to say the least, but she was sick and, well, I did want to have sex at some point in the future, so I figured if I sat there, cuddling her and her viruses, it would pay off. Eventually.

As we both sat there, watching whatever game was on (I think I remember it being North Carolina versus some sacrificial lamb...*sigh*), the future began to get rosier. Without prompting, she moved her hand over my jeans and unzipped them. She then apologized for being sick, and I told her not to worry about it. She then insisted that she needed to worry about it because we had plans and blah blah blah, I forget the rest because she pulled my dick out.

And, well, at that age, when dick is in sexy girl's hand, you get an insta-chub. I told her--half-heartedly, admittedly--that she didn't need to do that. It was okay. I'd survive. She insisted.

Well, one thing led to another and, after a brief handjob, she went down on me. Disease and all. But, you know what, I didn't fucking care at this point. I was in blissful, blow job heaven.

Things were progressing nicely when she decided to slip off of the couch and, despite the fact that she was sick, she dropped the bathrobe. She was naked underneath it. Oh dear me! This really was a ruse, wasn't it? Some kind of sexual game! I'm hip! I want to play, too! So, I take off my pants and now I'm naked from the waist down. She kneels on the floor in front of me and we resume.

Then she stops and turns her head. A funny look comes over her face for a second.

"Are you okay?" I asked her. She still grasped me with one hand.

"I'll be fine," she said and resumed. A few seconds later, she did it again, but as I was in the throes of pre-orgasm, I tried to ask if she was okay, but I only managed some garbled, gurgled, groaning noise. She made a coughing sound, but then turned back to finish me off. Which she did. It was grand and glorious. I glowed radiantly.

She glowed, sickly and greenly.

But then...apparently, when I fired off into the back of her throat...it triggered a chain reaction. One that could not be stopped.

There was no real warning. There was a gagging cough, and then there was a torrent of partially-digested chicken noodle soup, tea, french fries, and semen. It landed on the couch. Unfortunately, I was on the couch.

Being that I loved her, I didn't immediately jack her in the throat and ask what the fuck was wrong with her. In fact, I had this strange sort of mixture of pity, hysterical laughter, and "oh my God, she threw up on my dick." I tried to let the pity shine through, which was a difficult task, to say the least.

She started crying. "I'm doe dorry!" she wailed, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I don't know wad happened!"

"I think...it was probably a bit much for you...is all," I offered, cleaning myself up as best I could with the napkins from my dinner. I grabbed her robe and put it back around her, and then I hurried off to the bathroom for some towels to clean up. I race, because, the whole time I'm away, I keep thinking her goddamned dogs are going to eat that if I don't get it cleaned up quick enough, because, you know, they're dogs. Fortunately, I returned before the dogs had their dibs, and I cleaned up. She's still crying and apologizing.

After getting her calmed down, I took her back to her room and tucked her in her bed. Then I put on some clothes to wash because, guess who's pants got puked on! Mine! Hooray!!!

While the pants and towels were washing, I brought her some medicine and some more tea. Because I'm a sinner like that, I had spent the night at her house a few times and I had some spare undergarments, so I was able to pull on some drawers. She fell asleep. I watched more basketball and tried to clean the stains up from the couch and carpet. Eventually, the smell chased me from the room, so I took a shower to wash off the last vestiges of disease and puke, then I curled up next to her in the bed and spent the night.

Three days later, I got sick.

Fever in the Morning, Fever All Through the Night

Sorry, once again my humble abode has been stricken with a bout of illness not unlike those forecast for the End of Days. After having finally kicked the juicy little bug that had been lingering in my chest cavity and spewing forth its noxious fury into my sinuses, I was feeling great on Saturday. And it's not just the college football talking.

As the weekend wore on, though, my poor daughter began to become more and more and more pink in the cheeks, which is a sure sign of the onset of a fever. At first, we thought it was just because she refused to take her pink Notre Dame jersey off (seriously, she wore it for three days straight...I was beginning to have visions of that kid in Wisconsin who refused to take off his Favre jersey for the first thirteen years of his life or whatever). Finally, on Sunday, we had to face facts and realize that she was ill. Her sickness has lasted into today. Yesterday, I spent the day at home with her, which is why I was noticeably absent round these here parts.

Then, yesterday afternoon, after I walked up to the bus stop to get the little boy, he complained about how cold it was on the bus. And then he complained about a headache. And then he had a fever that was hot enough to melt lead, which correlates to about 100.7 degrees Fahrenheit, if you're playing along at home. That also meant that he's home from school now.

We had been holding out hope that they'd both hold off for about a week before contracting the current flu plague that is riding rampant through the school systems down here, but alas, it was not to be. They're both down, and with only a week to go in the current term. There's hopes that they could be back by the end of the week, though. I'd cross my fingers, but that would make it difficult to type.

However, I'm feeling as fine as frog hair, which is a change of pace after the past couple of weeks have seen me afflicted with and succumbing to the Ick. As I understand it, we aren't the only ones currently trying to stave off the pale rider and the waves of disease he leaves in his wake. Having gone through it, I can tell you, you don't want it. Good luck avoiding the cold, virulent touch of Disease.

And, as for college football...all I'll say is this: if I ever hear another pompous, cocksucking, arrogant, shit-for-brains Ohio State douchebag say anything about Notre Dame playing Navy, I'm going to punch them in the throat.

Oh, and one other thing: I'll have your Latin college football teams on Friday. I'm having way too much fun translating them.

The Day the Republic Died

Robitussin is the opiate of the masses. Of course, by that, I'm implying that "masses" means my lungs and "opiate" means "thing that makes my lungs feel slightly better and less wheezy and somewhat clear of the thick, yellow lung butter that flies up my trachea when I cough".

As you might remember, a week ago or so, I was begging for your pity telling you about how I was afflicted with some mild form of palsy pox plague head cold. Well, I'm afflicted anew, or again, or I'm still afflicted, and now it's moved from my head down into my chest. Or maybe I've caught something new. Whatever it is, this hanta virus rubeola typhoid lung infection has stifled my creativity for the past few days. More than that, it's inspired me to lay around bemoaning the sad state of affairs that have led me to being stricken by the Plague, which has seriously cut into my time for writing this blog and for me to be out sexually harassing you in your comments sections reading and commenting on your blogs.

See, the thing about this illness is that it's been holding me down, giving me Dutch rubs for two weeks. Usually, it's my wife who is sick for two weeks, whereas I get a sniffly nose for a day or so, and then I'm back to trying to get her to engage in some sexual egress, despite the thermometer sticking out of her mouth and the sickly blush brought to her nose and cheekbones.

It's very fitting that I'm still dying of sickness and disease, because today is the day that the Roman Republic died. Hooray! Okay, so maybe it wasn't today per se (did you like how I worked a little Latin into that?), but today is the anniversary of the Battle of Actium, fought in 31 BC. The forces of Octavian--he who had been adopted by his great-uncle Julius Caesar--routed Cleopatra's army, which was assisted by forces that were loyal to Mark Antony (who was Caesar's second cousin). In case you weren't paying attention during history class and in case you haven't read Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (tut, tut), you'll do well to remember that Antony was boning Cleopatra.

Now, when Caesar was assassinated, Octavian, Antony and this other cat named Marcus Aemilius Lepidus set themselves up as political allies. They set about hunting down Cassius and Brutus for the murder of Caesar. After that was completed, things fell apart when Antony and Octavian came to a disagreement--most likely over who was going to going to navigate the Egyptian Queen's Nile Delta, if you know what I'm saying--and the dispute erupted into civil war within the Roman Republic.

Actually, truth be told, Antony was married to Octavian's sister, so when Octavian heard that Antony was plowing Cleopatra, he was none too pleased. In order to keep Cleopatra's trap shut, Antony ceded large tracts of lands in the eastern part of the Republic to her and her son. Cleopatra ruled Egypt jointly with her son, Ptolemy Caesar, also known as Caesarion (Little Caesar). He wasn't called Little Caesar just because of his awesome pizzapizza deals. In fact, Caesarion's father was none other than Julius Caesar, which of course made him a half-cousin to the men vying for power, but also made him a political threat. When word came back to Rome that big chunks of the eastern part of the Republic had just been given to someone else, the Senate was up in arms.

Seizing this opportunity, Octavian called Antony on it, and there began a power struggle. However, Octavian had control of the western parts of the Republic, which included Rome, so it wasn't too difficult to demonize Antony, and soon people were calling for Antony's blood.

Things came to a head on September 2nd, 31 BC at the Battle of Actium, which was a sea battle fought just off the west coast of Greece near the Ionian Sea. Antony's forces were routed, which essentially secured all of Rome for Octavian. Not one to leave enemies in his wake, Octavian pursued Antony and Cleopatra. Again, their forces clashed near Alexandria in Egypt, this time in a land battle. And by "clashed" I mean that Antony's forces saw they were outnumbered 2-to-1, causing them to immediately defect or surrender to Octavian as he approached.

All the while, Antony is watching from a tower in Alexandria. You can almost hear him screaming "sonuvabitch!" from that tower window as he watched the white flag wave (Antony's forces were largely comprised of soldier from the Italian peninsula, so I can't even levy any insults toward Gaul here). Having had enough, Antony did the honorable thing and fell on his sword--badly. Apparently, during the course of falling on his blade, he...missed...merely giving himself a flesh wound. If this guy were a baseball franchise, he'd be the Chicago Cubs. The badly-wounded Antony was taken back to Cleopatra's chambers, where he lingered for a bit, but finally succumbed to his self-inflicted wound, dying in J. Lo's Cleopatra's arms...leaving her to face Octavian alone.

Nothing says "love" quite like leaving your paramour to deal with an angry political rival and his enormous army.

Cleopatra immediately begged Octavian for mercy. Despite her pleas for mercy, Octavian opted for the non-compassionate route, and told Cleopatra she would have "a special role" in Octavian's triumphant return to Rome. He did this while killing and butchering her son--essentially turning "Little Caesar" into "Littler Pieces of Caesar." I told you he was not one to leave an enemy behind.

"Fuck this," Cleopatra said, and killed herself, either by sticking her hand in a jar containing an asp or by simply ingesting a poison. Either way, she was dead, and so was the Roman Republic. Octavian returned to Rome triumphant, having seized direct control of all the lands commanded by the Roman forces. Elated, the Senate rewarded him with the name "Augustus" and the title "Princeps" (First Citizen). As there was no one left to challenge his power and authority, Augustus then became the first Roman Emperor. Through his wanton slaughter of Antony's supporters, the fifty Roman legions at his back, and the massive armada he commanded, Augustus began what was known as the "Pax Romana" (Roman Peace), which is still the longest continuous period of peace in continental Europe's history. It essentially lasted from 30 BC to 476 AD when Odoacer deposed the last Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus.

So, you'll forgive me if I've been a little lax in the whole posting thing, because I've been sick. And, I hope you forgive me for the little wrap up here at the end, because it is truly, truly terrible. In case you can't tell, you should sing this to Don MacLean's American Pie, thus making it truly groan-worthy:

So, say 'bye-bye' to the Republic, guys,
Antony was partin' Cleopatra's thighs,
And Octavian started spreading these vile lies,
That Antony was messing with his family ties,
Saying this would the day that Marcus dies,
This would be the day that he dies...

I swear, it was the Robitussin talking. Now, pass me another little shot glass full of the stuff and let me get back to sleep.

Afflicted by the Plague

I was going to write something here yesterday, but I didn't. Nothing like understating the blatantly obvious, I realize, but that's me. The reason for my lack of writing is that I've been taken down by the smallest of foes: the nefarious summer cold virus.

I'm not sure how this little bastard snuck into my body. Actually, I do. My wife has been fighting the nefarious summer cold for days now. At night, when reclining in bed together, she's been breathing her noxious, infectious miasma upon me. Thus it is that the aforementioned nasty little bugger has entered into the temple that is my body and has rendered me eloquently exhausted, which is truly unfortunate for one who refers to himself as "indefatigable."

I mean, I've been afflicted with much worse maladies. At the beginning of the summer, I was struck down by the flu, and it might have even been the most vile and worrisome Swine Flu! Take to the streets, screaming and running now. At the time, our buddy H1N1 was running rampant upon his pale horse through the streets of my little swath of North By God Carolina. And yet, I got up everyday, took the kids to school, and I shuffled off to work where I reformed matter to satisfy my desire. I hardly batted an eye in the face of that most terrible and horrendous affliction! Ha ha! Do your worst! I laugh in your piggy little porcine eyes.

But this? This little sniffle has grabbed me by the lapels and dragged me down into the very depths of wanton despair and lassitude. It's nothing more than a stuffed up head--though, my head is filled with a most heinous and syrupy mass of vibrant green pudding--and a bit of a sore throat, but the true nature of this beast is one that has rendered me...dare I say it...fatigued!

This isn't any typical exhaustion. It's a kind of languor that seems to accumulate in my limbs, making my hands and feet feel as if they weigh a hundred pounds apiece. It's difficult to drag them from one place to another, and while my dear friend--the Target brand knock-off of Dayquil--does help me to feel better, it's a temporary thing. As the four hour time period begins to wind down, the heaviness returns to my hands and feet and--worst of all--my eyelids.

So, if you'll forgive me, I'm not going to be blogging yesterday, as I'm trying to recover from this vile and unctuous pathosis. In fact, if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go take a nap, so that I can return to normal blogging activities in the near future.

Monday, Monday, It Was All I Hoped It Would Be

Monday morning came early for me this week. About 4:30, I was rudely awakened by my wife, the buxom and comely and pneumonically flu-ridden Boudicca, hacking and coughing and whimpering that pathetic whimper of those who are deathly near shuffling off this mortal coil.

We discussed what to do about her disease-ridden state, which apparently sparked a bit of inspiration in my lower bowels, and I had to hurry to the bathroom. After finishing up in there--consider it my thinking spot--I proclaimed that I would shower, wake the daughter, get her ready for school, and we would go to the hospital. You can see that I had a pretty good think, think, think in that small, stuffy room.

After getting ready, I load my wife and daughter up into the car and we head down to the hospital where I drop my wife at the door and ride off into the sunset, cackling like a madman and screaming "Freedom! Free-he-he-hee-dom!" go find a parking space. I then gather up my daughter, Cookie, and we trudge into the ER.

Therein, we are met by the ghost of the Notorious R.I.P. B.I.G. and his girlfriend, whom I shall name the Psychotic Pstripper. At first glance, I thought, "Oh, hey, she's kind of cute" only to realize, after having sat down, that she had the face of a giraffe and was so full of drugs that she should have had her own MSDS sheet. Fortunately, Cookie brought a book with her to read, because the Notorious R.I.P. B.I.G. and the Psychotic Pstripper (who was wearing a sheer, white shirt, with one button fastened over what served as her cleavage, thus baring a majority of her disease-ridden torso along with some oh-so-sexy skin-tight jeans...rowr...someone call the Pussycat Dolls) were debating who gave whom what STD. I, myself, buried my attention in a one-page write-up about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which I read about seventeen times until finally the happy couple went off to see a nurse...only to return a couple of seconds later. They sat uncomfortably close to us (that is how I knew that the Psychotic Pstripper had a face like a giraffe), which caused the security guard manning the metal-detector (ah, Durham, North Carolina, land of milk and honey) to hover near us with a rapt eye upon the happy couple while trying to pretend like she was watching the weather.

Finally, they took my wife to a bed, where they gave her tylenol. The time came for me to take my daughter to school, so we left my wife, I buzzed through Chick-Fil-A to get Cookie some breakfast (notice, I haven't eaten yet), and then off to the school. We arrived plenty early, but I finally got her delivered safely and began my return-flight to Durham. Upon arriving back at the hospital, I pulled into a spot and began dialing my boss to tell him I'd be in late this morning because I had to take my wife to the hospital. Just as I'm dialing, I notice movement out of the corner of my eye and see a Bag Lady trying to climb into the passenger seat of my car! I scream and reach for the locking mechanism. Too late! She's pried the door open! What do you want? A quarter? A cigarette? Just get out of here!

This woman, with her wild, untamed hair, her paint-encrusted yoga pants and black fleece, shambled along and had a look about her as if she hadn't slept at all the night before, like she had been up all night with a fever and a cough and--oh, shit, that's my wife.

Yeah.

So, as I calm down, I call into work and tell them that I had to run her to the hospital and my boss asks if everything is okay and I say, "Yeah, just a nasty fever and a spot of pneumonia" and he said to take my time coming in. My boss is pretty awesome like that (and no, he doesn't read this shit, which is exactly why I still have a job). Anyway, I hung up the phone and I was like, "Dammit! I should have told him you were mauled by a cougar!"

I then take my wife home, get some medicine into her, prop up her feet, tuck her in, help her to get warm, bring her some water and some Sunny D. However, I finally have to leave because, oh, hey, I have a physical at one o'clock. I have to pick my daughter up at three. This ought to be fun.

So, I buzz by work, check in with the boss, tell him I'm off to my physical and then to pick up Cookie and I'll see you guys tomorrow, hopefully with little to no virus bodies clinging to my personage. I'm off to my physical where I get run through the typical gamut of tests. I have to say, I was impressed that they only jabbed one needle into my arm in order to draw blood (normally, it takes three or so) and the doctor didn't jangle my nards or anything. Though, she did ask if I wanted her to help me with a testicular self-exam, and I was proud of myself for not saying "Do you take cash?"

Forty-five minutes later, I'm on my way to pick up Cookie, and since I've been proclaimed one healthy fat man, I decided to celebrate with a quick trip through McDonald's. Nothing says "I Just Passed My Physical" like sodium-encrusted cholesterol wedged between two stale buns.

I finally pick up Cookie, stop off to get my wife some more Tylenol, and head home. At this point, I'm exhausted, still a little hungry, and suffering from one wicked-ass caffeine headache, so I laid down for a little bit. I was awakened about thirty minutes later by Cookie at the side of my bed. "I have a 101.7 fever."

*sigh*

So finally, blissfully, I get everyone taken care of. My wife is medicined-up, my daughter is full to brimming with fever reducers, and I've inverted a bottle of tequila eaten a healthy dinner of left-overs. We all go to bed and we're sleeping somewhat soundly when I'm rudely awakened in the middle of the night by my wife shuffling around in the room. That's when I hear her click off the fan.

"Turn that thing back on or I'll slit your throat," I growl. Except, it came out something more like "I think it's time for you to take more medicine, dear." She curled up next to me, telling me how cold she was, and so we eventually fell into fitful slumber.

Finally, my alarm went off and I threw back the covers, sweaty and specked with the dying vestiges of my wife's diseases, never so happy to see Tuesday morning arrive.

Quarantine!

By the orders of the Center for Disease Control and the Government of These United States of America, this blog is quarantined until such time as it is deemed to no longer be a threat to the health of the general populace.

Be warned that, if you have had any contact with this blog in the past week, you could be exposed to the dangerous and highly-deadly H1N1 virus. Or, you might get the sniffles and a fever and a nasty cough that keeps your husband up all night.

Please refer to this site if you are unfamiliar with the symptoms of the Artist Formerly Known as the Swine Flu.

Thank you for your cooperation. Wash your hands. Jiggle it twice. Eet mor chikun.

Kill the Pig...

...spill its blood, slit its throat.

Nothing like starting off with a good, violent line from a classic piece of literature. However, did William Golding know something we didn't, what with this Swine Flu/Hinee thing running amok through the world's population, leaving death and destruction in its wake? I think he did. Kill the pig, indeed. And not just the fat kid with the glasses. Don't look up, tubby.

To that end, I offer you this to try and make it through your day. Enjoy.



I guess we'll all meet over at Mr. Sanders' joint later for some back bacon and mead.

How to Tell if You Have Swine Flu

The most recent overhyped media frenzy when it comes to public health is the dreaded Swine Flu. Remember back when we had to fear birds? Yeah, fuck that. It's pigs now.

People are terrified of this new, porcine-originating flu. And rightly so. 150 people in a nation of 110 million have died! That's a mortality rate of 0.000136%!!! Gnash your teeth and beat your breasts, the Black Rider is among us, touching us with his sickly, sausage-infested scythe, harvesting souls right and left with his latest biological weapon, the Swine Flu.

Being the scientist that I am, I've decided to allay some of your fears. The Swine Flu isn't something that you'll get by hanging out with pigs. You also cannot get Swine Flu by eating the savory, succulent flesh of the pig--you can, however, get fat from eating too much of the savory, succulent flesh of the pig. The name "Swine Flu" means that it originally was a pig flu but mutated into a strain of flu that can now infect humans. So, transmission of Swine Flu comes from people, not pigs. No need to put the pork chop down, fatty, you're safe. Jowly, but safe.

If you are afraid you've come in contact with anyone who has had Swine Flu, stay the fuck home. Turn off the lights. Draw the curtains. Sit in a bathtub. Weep.

If you are wondering if you have contracted the Swine Flu, check to see if you have any of the following symptoms:

• You are achy.
• You have chest congestion.
• You have lots of yellow mucus in your sinuses and throat.
• When it comes time to eat, any slop will do.
• You have grown a curly tail.
• You've grown more chauvinistic.
  
• You've developed a stutter and an aversion to pants.
• You suddenly want to make out with a frog.
• People mistake you for a cop.
• Jabba has hired you to guard his palace.
  
• Spiders are writing you messages in their webs.
• When you're outside in the sun too long, you smell something delicious.
• You bear an uncanny resemblance to Porco Rosso.

If you exhibit any of these symptoms, please contact your nearest health professional and/or barbecue supply store.

It Figures

So, it was 80 degrees here this weekend. Sunny. Beautiful. Not a cloud in the sky. All you could ever ask for in a weekend and more.

And I was sick.

Not only that, but I didn't go see Watchmen because I was sick. I knew this would happen, too. My kids and my wife all had this cold, so I figured I'd get it the weekend that Watchmen came out. And I did. Power of positive thinking, huh? Couple in the time change with Daylight Saving Time and I was out of it for most of Sunday. I mean, I laid on the couch, bleary-eyed, for most of the morning and then sort of putz around the house in the afternoon. On Saturday, the coach for my daughter's basketball team had a cookout for the girls and their families, so we went to that. In that manner, the weekend wasn't a total bust. Being that this was the first nice weekend, I naturally forgot sunscreen, and so my two kids were kind of pink-faced when we came home Saturday evening.

Did any of you not named Scope go see Watchmen this weekend? I did get to finish my re-read of the book, so I might go during the week some time. I heard from a fan that it was awesome, and then on the radio this morning I heard some nub who called in and said, "We went with our entire family, and we were thinking it would be something like Spider-Man, but it wasn't. It was all dark and depressing and there was a lot of talking."

Are you that dumb? Did you not at least look into the movie before you went? Isn't everything revolving around the movie's release hinged on the words "Alan Moore's dark take on costumed superheroes"? And, of course, everyone was talking about Dr. Manhattan's blue dick. The rest of him is blue, so did they think his man parts would be any different? I mean, I realize what Laurie's role was when she lived with him, but I didn't expect her to be that good at it.

Also, this weekend, I realized that I totally missed doing my basketball prediction post. I even had things all written down on a scrap piece of paper with analysis and predictions and everything, but then I got distracted last week and didn't get it done. I can tell you that I successfully picked Cornell, Morehead St. and Radford, but the last two were just sentimental guesses.

Just remember, at Morehead State, the cheerleaders yell out what you want from them.

Update! No sooner had I pushed "publish" than the phone rang, and my wife was informing me that the school called informing her that Cookie was, well, tossing her cookies and had that fresh, warm feeling of just coming out of the oven (in other words, a fever). I rushed out the door to go get her only to discover that they wanted me to take Tank home, too, because he knocked his nose on another kid's forehead in the bathroom. He was bloody or had anything broken, but he was "inconsolable" over the affair, so I whisked them both home where they are recovering nicely. As my boss said as I was running out the door earlier, "March is shaping up to be one helluva month for you, huh?"

Yep.

Bucket Brigade

Sorry that I've left you guys stuck with that review of Orcs for a couple of days, but I'm fucking wiped out. I don't know what it is, but I'm thinking I need to remove the "iNDefatigable" part from my title. I guess I can't dress like Dr. Jones anymore.

My boss spent the weekend fountaining vomit, and one of my coworkers felt lousy on Monday afternoon and was out Tuesday. Surprisingly, neither of my kids nor my wife are sick. Me? I'm run down and my eyes have that gritty, grainy feeling that you get when you rub them too much because you love that sort of glowing yellow-green torus that appears when you do so. Not even coffee has made me feel my normal perkalicious self; you know something must be wrong if I'm not perkalicious after infusing my bloodstream with the sweet brewiness of Cofea canephora!

I'm hoping that I can sleep it off some more tonight. I'll still slap together the Latin lesson for tomorrow morning, and I swear, as soon as I can, I'll be back here divulging too much information to you all as well as peppering my sentences with f-bombs like they were semicolons.

For now, I think I'm going to go start a hydrogenation. Let's see...flammable solvent, explosive gas, pyrophoric catalysts, forces that convert glassware into grenades. What could possibly go wrong?

The Burger Wars Claim Another

When it comes to fast food, my choice is usually Wendy's, if I'm in the mood for processed, square-shaped patties. Chick Fil-A is usually my top choice all around, but they're a little lean on the burgers, so if it's beef I'm craving, then Wendy's is the place for me.

Having two small children, I, of course, frequent McDonald's. The "Happy Toys", as the kids call them, are the reasons for McDonald's being number one on the kids' list, though my daughter is slowly joining my wife and me in the Wendy's camp.

There's another option, of course. We don't eat at Burger King. When I was at Notre Dame, there was a Burger King in the student center. The student center was located conveniently right behind the chemistry building. I think you can see where the rub is here. Convenience--especially when your day is wrapped around being in the lab from at least seven in the morning until at least seven at night--is the name of the game, and, sadly Burger King was convenient. So, I ate there. A lot.
The thing about Burger King, though, is that, while their burgers can be good, they also make me violently ill. All the time. A couple of years ago--again, for convenience sake--we hit the local Burger King and that night I spent doubled over in agony, swearing off the BK once and for all. Now, I love the King mascot. He's just a perfect mixture of creepy and funny...kind of like me, but with a crown on his head and some mad dance moves in the endzone. My problems pretty much revolve solely around the fact that my tender innards can't handle the food.

Even when I was at ND, I would feel as dirty as a meth whore on the nights that I suffered through a Burger King lunch. I was sure that the little old woman who ran the cash register--Thelma--was shitting under the cheese on my Whopper when no one was looking. Or even while people looked on, because she was an old woman, and old people can get away with that shit. Sure, they tilt their head back and stare through the bottom of their lenses, acting all confused and stuff while hastily searching for the 'Double Whopper' button on the cash register, but really they're plotting your demise, one shat upon Whopper at a time. I'm onto you, Thelma, and the other goons in your blue-hair mafia. You might have been a riveter in your day, but now I know you take devious pride and amusement in how many college kids you can sicken with the contents of your colostomy bag.

I bring all this up because Burger King is currently running with this iDog thing with their kids meals. Yesterday, my daughter and her friends got out of school early--on the first Friday of every month, they have a half day--and so they went to Burger King to eat lunch and get their iDog toys. Yippee fucking skippy. And then they played like lunatics in the playland, which was apparently pretty good. Whatever, the judge says I'm not allowed to hang out in those places anymore, so I get my playland updates second-hand.
The problem was that, a little before six this morning, my daughter was up puking. Yeah, it was hours after she had eaten at Burger King, and she had had dinner, as well. But, she claimed that no one else at school was sick, and a bunch of what she brought up was mucus, but still, there can't be a mere coincidence between her eating at Burger King for the first time and puking within the same 24 hour period, right? My point, exactly.

I wonder if Thelma shit under the cheese on her burger, too.

And Lo, the Pale Rider Departs

Okay, so we've run the course of antibiotics on Cookie now. She's much better, but still has a mild cough and hacks some stuff up from time to time, but it's nothing serious. Tank has just his cough left (and is finally beginning to get it sunk through his stubborn little skull that it's socially accepted to cover one's mouth when spewing germ-laden spittle upon an audience whilst coughing), but I'm thinking of getting him his own bedside humidifier to see if that doesn't help clear his cough up. In fact, I think everyone is getting their own bedside humidifiers because my wife has fallen in love with my little bedside buddy (no, not that one...she fell in love with that eight years ago...heh heh heh) and we don't want to surrender it to the children.

Wait, where the hell was I before I went off on my sexually charged innuendo? Right. The state of wellness around my abode. My wife never came down with the Ick; I think this is mainly because I stayed on my right side at night so that I didn't blow germ-saturated breath in her face all night long while we slept. Also, I think a large part of it is because I sent her away on Friday night last week to go drink with her friends so that she could escape the den of pestilence, free herself of the clingy children, and perhaps drown a few bacteria in whiskey. Or maybe she's not the kind of pansy who gives in to the sicknesses like the rest of us. I kind of liked option a or b better, myself.

As for me, I still have some muke issues, but I'm here to tell you something, folks. Remember how I referenced Diet Dr. Pepper as the Panacea of the Masses? I was wrong. That might be the Elixir of Life, but as far as Panaceas go, Robitussin is the way to go. Or, at least, the cheaper Target knock-off is the way to go. This stuff was like the sweat off Zeus' balls. I'd take a shot and instantly began to feel better. I could breathe without wheezing, I could blow my nose without threat of aneurysm, the sun shone brighter, sugar tasted sweeter and I farted rainbows. Actual, honest-to-God, pot of gold at the end rainbows. Fucking. Aye.
I'm still downing it every four hours. I'm not addicted. No. I'm not. It's just that the Precious needs me to drinks it every four hourses. Tricksy little hobbitses aren't going to steals it from us. Whoa. Sorry, there. I think the only problem with the Target knock-off of Robitussin is that it makes you go a little batshit crazy in the head. I mean, for a while on Saturday evening, it looked like Notre Dame had a functioning offense and defense, and we all know that's a fucking pipe dream.

Also, I highly recommend the cranberry-flavored ginger ale, not because it's a magical cure-all tonic, it just tastes really fucking good.
So now, hopefully, we're through the worst part of the illnesses. At least now three of us aren't lying around wondering if this is the end and telling Elizabeth that we're coming home. The Durham County Health Inspector came by and took down the Quarantine sign, so I take that as a step in the right direction. Although, it is still quite comical when all three of us cough at almost the exact same time. My home is beginning to smell like Lysol, bleach and pyrethrin (don't ask) and much less like a charnel house, which is a definite good thing. Unfortunately, my wife's pity has run out and now I am expected to become a functioning adult in the household with responsibilities, duties and chores. Damn.

And no, pervert, I still haven't had a chance to celebrate my anniversary. We might find a spare, disease-free moment sometime around February in between all the cleaning.

...ugh...

The First Rider continues his parade through my little family.

While Tank has gotten better (he only now has a very loud cough, wherein he only sometimes remembers to cover his mouth), and Cookie has stopped throwing up liquid of a violent yellow, I know am fully encrusted with the Ick.

It started yesterday simple enough: cough, cough, spit, ewww, that's gross. Last night it spiraled down into a fever. I think I've shaken the fever (Diet Dr. Pepper, panacea for the masses) and I'm not wracked with chills like I was yesterday afternoon.

I initially started out using some 'old home remedies'. Unfortunately, the hen hasn't really been sucking much of the Ick out of my lungs (perhaps I chose poorly in opting for a Rhode Island Red) and drinking my own urine only made my breath smell. Worse. I also went out a punted half a dozen cats--not so much for their ability to heal me, but more for my own personal entertainment. Laughter is the best medicine, so I guess it did serve a purpose. Meow. I also brewed up a tea made from various herbs I found around my yard, but about fifteen minutes after imbibing, I just sat there and giggled while wondering why my fingers don't fing.

Finally, I decided to live life by my second mantra: better living through chemistry. I pounded some mucinex, downed some Day-quil (which promptly knocked me out), and drank lots of water, ginger ale, and the aforementioned panacea for the masses. I repeated the ritual last night before bed, this time adding a healthy slather of Vap-o-rub. My wife looked over and wondered why I was rubbing it there, and when I gave her a knowing, lascivious chuckle, she ran screaming from the room. I haven't seen her since. If anyone sees a large-chested redhead with strained vocal chords and eyes the size of dinner plates, send her back this way, please.

My tour of the pharmaceutical aisle has paid off as I now have broken my fever and I'm coughing up much less phlegm. But that which I do cough up is a lovely shade of orange yellow. Puts me in mind of Play-doh. Guess I know what the kids are getting for Christmas.

Welcome to the Den of Disease

Want a follow-up to the follow up? No? Fuck you, you get one anyway.

Last week, Cookie had the Strep. I went and got her antibiotics and she's been rocking those for a week. She feels much better. Sore throat is gone. Everyone is happy. Hooray.

Over the weekend, Tank got a cold. You might remember him from such descriptions as the "feverish four-year-old who ruined my anniversary plans". Apparently, he also likes to wake his parents up in the middle of the night and tell them not to go walking in the woods, or else you'll get lost. Dosed him with the Zicam Nasal Swabs and the Mucinex and the Ibuprofen. Still coughs, but fever is gone, mucus in chest is breaking up like an Imperial Fleet before making the jump to hyperspace. Sometimes, I have my moments. They're not many, but I have them.

Today, Cookie had a cough. We sent her to school anyway because she was out last week and got a ream of homework. Not wanting to go through that again, we shipped her off to ye olde schoolhouse. Got a call around 10:20 am that she had a 101 degree fever and a racking cough. Wife went to rescue her. Upon arrival, Wife reports that the Cookster looked "like death". They headed over to the doctor where Cookie actually fell asleep during the examination. Unsure of the diagnosis, she had a chest x-ray and was sent home to rest. Doctor called a little while later with the diagnosis: pneumonia. I'm headed out to get her prescription from the pharmacy on my way home.
What's that slight discomfort I'm feeling in my backside? Oh, why, it's the universe, sodomizing my household with disease.

The Follow Up

I know you were all wondering how the...ahem...celebration of our eighth anniversary went last night. However, a gentleman never tells.

I, fortunately for you, am not a gentleman. In fact, I'm all about the gory details, right down the bodily fluids. Strap yourselves in.

So, we planned for a romantic dinner last night. We were going to go get some steak or maybe go to Ted's Montana Grille, because goddammit, buffalo is good meat. However, I ended up swinging by a bar and picking up some pizza. I came home to find my daughter in full-on meltdown drama queen mode because she couldn't find her colored pencils. My son met me at the door, snot running down his face, his cheeks pinked with fever. My wife had the glazed-over look of someone who had just seen a particularly gruesome car wreck...or had just spent the last few hours fighting over the location of a bag of colored pencils, all the while wiping snot from a feverish four-year-old.

We exchanged gifts. This is where it shows that we know each other after eight years of marriage: I got her a gift certificate for coffee and for shoes; she got me a book, a coffee grinder and a gift certificate for video games. We dined upon our pizza...after another fifteen minutes of full-on drama queen meltdown over the now found bag of colored pencils. After dinner, we watched Jeopardy and then it was bath time. My son took his and got tucked into bed, my daughter took her shower, and got tucked into bed. My wife and I hung out in our room for a little bit, she working on a writing project of her own, me flipping back and forth between the Monday Night Football game and this extreme marksmen show on the History Channel.

Finally, at ten o'clock or shortly thereafter, we settled down into bed and, just as I was turning off the light, we heard a blood-curdling scream. Into the room staggered the four year old, delirious with fever, telling of how badly he wanted his medicine. I hauled him into bed, my wife dosed him the appropriate medications, I slathered him down with a little bit of Vick's vaporub, and we settled down once more, four year old firmly (and wiggly) between us. Turning out the light once more, we wished one another a happy anniversary and settled in to sleep. About thirty minutes after turning the light out, the boy decided he wanted to go back to his bed. After tucking him in and telling him it was okay that he dumped out part of his medicine all over my side of the bed (most of it was on his shirt and his bear), I slipped back under the covers in my bed, ready to get down to business.

And by business, I mean laying my head down on a pillow that smelled faintly of spilled grape-flavored ibuprofen solution and falling soundly asleep, which is where my wife already was.

Ah, Parenthood.

He Slimed Me, Ray

Hey all. Sorry for the silence of the past couple of days. Well, I did want to leave my mad props for B-Dubs up for a day or so, that way everyone could let their imaginations run wild about the wild and crazy stupid shit we did in college. And, based on the number of people offering to bang Will on his birthday, I think I'm going to have to let everyone know when my birthday is. Jesus. When did this turn into Will's House o'Gettin' Some?

Anyway, remember a couple of days ago when I referenced the plague going around my house? Well, it all started innocently enough when I came home to find the little boy sleeping in my bed, wheezy breath and snotty nose and everything. The problem with having a little boy like Tank is that he's very affectionate. He likes to give kisses and hugs and wipe his snotty nose all over you. He's also strong like ox, so it's difficult to deny him when he really has his heart set on smearing his germ-ridden bodily fluids all over you hugging you. And, he's a sweet boy, so you don't want to kick him to the curb and tell him "Hell no, sick-o" want to reciprocate. So, there you are with a disease-riddled four-year-old wrapped around your torso. Fabulous.

Unfortunately, all that overexposure to mucus and such has finally dragged me down. Hot, wild monkey sex with the Mrs. while she was sick probably didn't help matters much, either.

So, that's why I've been quiet since Tuesday. Many apologies. I'm going to go curl up under my desk and sleep until 4:00 rolls around. Ta.