Sick...

When Cameron was in Egypt land…let my people go…” Cameron from Ferris Beuler’s Day Off.

I am sick. Well, not the kind of sick that you are thinking of, I really thought she was 18. Who ever heard of a 14 yr old with a rack like that…ok…off the subject? I am sick with some sort of fun head cold. Why the heck do they have head colds? What’s that all about? This isn’t going to turn into some cliché routine about why it should be called a hot since you’re not cold when you have one.

It all starts the same. You are sitting in your chair happy and at peace. Suddenly, you notice that you have a slight tingle in the back of your throat. You think, “Oh, man, I’m getting sick aren’t I?” By this time you know there is nothing you can do. You drink a ton of orange juice and down a bottle of vitamin c, but by the time you wake up the next morning, you are an inch from wishing yourself dead. One of the fun particulars of this brand of head cold is that my nose is completely and totally clogged. The amazing thing (someone call the Twilight Zone) is that even with a nose stuffed up so bad that you can’t snort a particle of air in, you leak snot like a civ. You can only feel it some of the time. Others you walk by a mirror and realize that you look like your 2yr old niece with snot hanging dangerously close to your upper lip, and by the way your are feeling, you might just stick that tongue out and take care of the job. The reason I didn’t is that the leak, unlike the breathing, goes both ways, so you know you are swallowing gallons while you sleep. I can’t survive the Gallon Challenge, but I can if it’s snot. The upshot is that I don’t have any appetite when I wake up.

Paradox the second. Due to the total blockage of my nose, I am forced to breathe through my mouth at all times. This of course makes me look like a full time “open mouth breather” and we all know how smart those guys are. When I sleep, my mouth is open and makes my throat dry as a bone (which doesn't make sense if you think of it, your bones are covered with blood and stuff, not dry). The second paradox is how is it that my throat is dry as the Sahara in drought season when I have been swallowing mucus all night? Does it float in the middle of my airway so as not to lose any precious cargo on the way down?

The part that irks me the most is the fact that this is now the second time in one month that this has happened to me. The exact same illness! When I find the guy that I gave it to and got it back from, I’m gonna…well…give it back to him again…

Now, I just lie in my bed, finding no comfortable position, swallowing my snot as I wipe my nose with my bed sheets (I gave up caring). I feel like Cameron illustrates in one of the best 80’s movies in history “Ferris Beuler’s Day Off”. As I look at the clock and realize that, yes, I have to work till midnight tonight and again at 8am tomorrow, the only thing that runs through my head is, “When Jared was in Egypt land…Let my Jared go.”