A Festival of Snot and Sneezes
*honk!* Bleary-eyed, with a head feeling more like the inside of a dusty pillow than something filled with thought-soaked neurons, I attempt to tap something out on this…this…keyboard thing that sits before me, all of the letters running together in my blurred vision and the keys feeling like individual mountains of tiredness that my fingers must desperately scale time and time again, only to be slammed down into the abyss. The hands know, instinctively, that even if they could manage the trek, the results on the page would be nothing more than the gooberings of a half-witted idiot, soaked in dextromethorphan and surrounded by tissues.
*snork* I hate being sick.
*sneeze* Well, not that anyone really enjoys being sick, I don’t think. I for one, while having seen television programs about sado-masochistic couples that regularly beat the tar out of each other for the sheer orgasmic wailing of it all, have yet to see 20/20 do a special on the habits of folks that get infections because it turns them on so MUCH.
*hack* Ok, so maybe folks like that do exist. They’re called, “childcare workers” and “teachers”. Where else can you submit yourself to a wide array of pathogens in such a short period of time? Third-world countries have nothing on the well-stocked daycare. The walls practically crawl with cities of germs, each finding itself surrounded by a billion friends and waving a banner that says, “Nostrils Or Bust!”
*gak!* There’s something so humble about having your body, normal functionality taken for granted by us so many times during the day, suddenly attacked by an invisible, foreign, microscopic critter that, despite being smaller than anything we can even see, reduces you to a whimpering, quivering plop of goo hoping that if this is death, it come quickly, and would it bring a large hammer to crack me over the head, just in case?
*moan* I sometimes fail to understand the body’s defense strategy in which it decides to flood all passageways with mucus as if the germ was hanging out and having a bar mitzvahs on the surface of your membranes. Trust me, there is no way that anything could survive the amount of crap flowing from our noses in full swing cold season, let alone mount a full scale attack. Those buggers are dug in for the long haul like retirees in Key West.
*blow* The intention, which noble, appears to be misplaced; doesn’t snot take a fair whack of energy and resources to make? How about using those to actually fight the damned cold, make swords for the white cells, anything! Wouldn’t you like to be the cell that gets designated as a, “mucus generator”? Boy, that’s gotta make the senior prom rather uncomfy. “No, Dad, I don’t have a date. I tried to ask Suzie but she got covered in goo and suffocated.”
*achoo!* “The next one will be my last,” you are convinced. “I’ll sneeze, stars will appear, the lights will dim, my brain will implode, and that’ll be it.” Every last spasm and cramp in your body appears to be the death throes of a person beaten into the dust of the ground, barely having enough energy to raise a finger and switch the channel. Maury Povich seems downright inspirational at this point, given you have the mental capacity of a tire. “Cruel, heartless
world,”
we moan“Cruel, heartless world,” we moan and once again attempt to summon enough strength to crank open the child-proof Elixir of Life, made by your friends and mine at Robitussin.
*sniffle* Still, everyone says it’s the season for colds, as if that’s supposed to make me feel more festive or in the mood to get one. Hell, I know it can’t be a real season because Wal*Mart’s aisles aren’t full of disease-oriented cheap plastic decorations. “Snot-Boy sings a zippy tune about aches and fevers, just press his hand to try it out!” Maybe they’re missing out; after all, a few well-placed items, such as compacting trashcans, portable flamethrowers for sanitizing everything, Brawny Triple-Roll Kleenex, and USB-powered mini-nose-vacs would probably sell like hotcakes.
*groan* You and I, like everyone else, will soldier on through this minefield of bacteria and virii, deterred only by the most severe of ailments, putting on a good face to our co-workers (’oh, just a little bug going around, I’m fine’), and generally hating every moment we’re even slightly conscious. We will spend our days walking around in a fog and attempting to avoid impaling ourselves on living room furniture. Eventually it’ll leave, leaving a path of crumpled tissues in its wake and a very dazed but relieved person blinking and wondering where the hell they are and how they possibly made it to March without having a seizure.
I wish each and every one of you luck during this time of trials. I raise my tissue to you.
Beam me up, Snotty.
(16 comments) said:
(16 comments) said:
