If I’m SICK I stay home. I curl up on the couch (unless I’m REALLY, REALLY sick, in which case I stay in bed. But I have to be 2 steps from rushing to the hospital because a body part has dropped off or green stuff is coming out of every orifice.) and I keep a bucket, a thermometer and the phone within quick reach. I find things on tv to sleep through because I’m too sick to stay awake too long, so why get invested in something I’m going to miss? I probably take some kind of medicine for at least some of my symptoms. I’m SICK. It’s SERIOUS.
[tangent: one time I was really, really sick. Like I missed an entire week of work because the doctor said “you have to stay home this week.” And I said “I’ll try to come home early a few days.” And he said “no – YOU HAVE TO STAY HOME THIS WHOLE ENTIRE WEEK. HAVE TO. NO WORK. STAYING HOOOOOOOOME.” This was after I’d had a fever so high that I’d started calling out for the nurse to bring me some water, so very parched and thirsty was I, and called and called for Nurse, Nurse, oh NURSE??? for a really long time before the less crazy part of my brain remembered that I was in the house totally alone. And that I hate water. And luckily I was too fevered and addle-brained to be as completely freaked out by the hallucinations until 3 days later. Good times…]Where was I? Oh yeah, not sick. I have a cold.
If I have a COLD I just have a cold. I still go to work. I do the dishes and the laundry, at least a little. I mutter through life, usually with a box of snot cloths in tow, but I don’t stop doing life stuff. Remember what the experts say about colds: if you don’t take it easy and really work on getting better you’ll have that cold for 7 whole days. BUT if you get lots of sleep, drink fluids, really take care of yourself the cold will be gone in a week!
In other words, no matter what I do, I’m going to have this cold. So I just live life. With a cold. But I’m not really sick.
Now trying to explain this to my co-workers.
In an effort to put a positive spin on this big, stupid cold I’ve used my nasty-looking and ughy-sounding symptoms to good use:
- By coughing LOUDLY each time someone approached I was able to keep from sitting next to strangers in the movies last night.
- Two people at work decided not to give me their latest mindless work for me to do after seeing the mound of Kleenex waterfalling out of my trash can – “what if she calls in sick tomorrow when I’m supposed to have this done?”
- People will not begrudge you the last 2-bite cinnamon roll if you’ve snuffled 16 times in the last 30 seconds.
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