2006-09-05

On Being Sick


Sadly,
I am surrendering to the fact of Being Sick.

The childrens all went back to school and shared a bunch of germs with each other and this means that both rollerderby and my office are full of parents who bring home germs and then go on to share those germs with me.

Lots of people are sick.

This is an unfortunate bug, though. It's got everything - dizziness, nausea, sore throat, sniffles, fever. It's like a mild version of the flu.

I would normally jump to the conclusion that I woke up with West Nile this morning but since the women on either side of me are having the same feelings of faintness and abnormally uninterested appetite, I am reasonably sure that I've not been bitten by a disease-spreading asshole mosquito and that my mosquito bites, although there are many, have only been inflicted by the regular jerks of the insect world.

It's cool.
I'm going to live.

Rosie suffers when I'm sick. If I'm at home and it's not a weekend, she thinks it's Super Playtime while I think, "Oh shit, I am falling into the Grand Canyon which must represent the family-sized hole in my life and I thought this couch was a parachute but really it's not! I'm not getting saved! I'm going to DIE! ALONE! That's the remote, not an altimeter! Arrrrrrrrghghghghghg!!!!!! Why am I under the couch now?
Where's my remote?
What's happening?"

It's not really like I am capable of playing with the dog when I'm sick, you know? I'm a creative person and I get high fevers. When creative people get sick with The Fever, it's kind of like living life as either the protagonist in The Wall, or as if it's 1892 and absinthe figures prominently in daily life.
So when I fall off of the couch because of the delirium of my fever, she inaccurately thinks I'm hunkering on the floor to play "Pet the Pet", which is a fun and high-energy game that I invented wherein you are required to�. well�. pet the pet.
It has a song that goes with it.
Look, there are limits to my trouble-maker persona, okay?
I might very well be taking over the crown as the sweatiest rollergirl in the league but I have soft spots and singing to my dog, during a game that I made up is just FINE
Leave me alone.
I'm sick.
I can't play the game anyways because I can't sing because my throat hurts so bad.

So of course I came to work, right?
Hey� I'm a giver, what can I say?
Mostly I came in because it's been four days of slacking and I can't take it anymore. I spent all my money on plane tickets for my (fucking) family reunion and I couldn't bear the thought of being trapped for one more day with Bob Barker, the fake Not-Season-One Laguna Crew, and the gang over at the Food Network with no way to hop off the couch, grab my keys and spin around buying shit at Target that I totally do not need.
Like Pizza Hut pizza.

So I decided to haul in, score the points, spread the love, and do some shit before heading back to the dreamscape of my fever and the pet-hair covered furniture that comprises my current slice of paradise.

Whatever.
You'd have done the same.
Now, when I get home I expect chicken soup, a buttery piece of toast, and a cute new peignoir in which to hang out for the rest of the afternoon.
And a dog-walker.
Please someone come and walk my little Rosewad.
There's no pleasure in being sick if the dog thinks you're about to start singing to her.

arizonasarah at 11:59 a.m.

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