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MIRTH
IN YOUR MAILBOX! |
Is it worse to be ignorant or apathetic? I don't know and I don't care.
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Blah. I
feel terrible. I'd say I feel
like crap, but that would be
giving crap a bad name. (Forgive
me. I'm too sick to think through
the logic of that one.) This
isn't even the good kind of sick,
the kind where they dope you up
on codeine and you hallucinate
about rubdowns from space
aliens. No,
instead, I get a cold that
migrates around my body like a
bunch of ducks that just flew
over a Dead concert. It started
in my nose, took a vacation to my
neck, went sight seeing in my
sinuses and is currently residing
in my ears like a fat aunt at a
family reunion buffet. I used to
fake being this sick back in high
school when missed work was
forgiven faster than you can deny
selling arms to the
Contras. Those
were the days. My mother, a
trained nurse who should have
known better, was unusually
forgiving when it came to
symptoms of disease. Of course,
it helped to pick symptoms that
weren't easily verified, like a
sore throat or a bad headache. I
made the mistake of faking a
fever once, but you catch on
right quick after too many anal
thermometers. (The proper answer
to the question of "how many is
too many," is, of course,
any.) I
was never, ever sick in college,
except when papers were due, when
mysterious illnesses with phantom
symptoms would suddenly overtake
me at speeds that defy
relativity. I can only recall
actually being very sick once in
college, and it was during my
time in the dorms. Dorms are
worse than preschools when it
comes to germ spreading,
especially on men's floors, where
residents are prone to not
flushing so they can show off
their work to the next
guy. I
was especially resilient to
sickness for those
four-and-a-half years because of
all the rumors about the
standards of the student health
facilities. Actually, calling it
a facility is being far too kind.
It was more like being mugged by
a doctor in a condemned 7-11. At
one point, rumor had it that
student health was staffed by
residents of the vet school in
order to defray animal cruelty
protests. On
my only visit to student health,
I went in with the exact same
problem I'm having now, eerily
enough: loss of hearing in my
left ear. Back then, they told me
to take some aspirin and soak my
feet. Curiously, it worked. But I
found out why when I went to a
real doctor this time. Turns out
there's nothing you can do about
the hearing thing, so I would
have had the same effects if the
student health doctor had made me
take pony rides at the
fair. Still,
telling me there's nothing I can
do but wait is a funny thing to
say to someone whose body is
producing phlegm at a rate that
borders on demonic
possession. But
at least she gave me drugs. Real
drugs. Aspirin is really more of
a condiment these days. If you
believe those Anacin commercials,
you should take aspirin
constantly, like Altoids. I even
read something recently that said
that you should take aspirin
during a heart attack. During.
Golly, as if it's not hard enough
to dial 911 when you're clutching
your chest and losing feeling in
your head. The
real drugs in question were
antibiotics, which is basically
the solution for any unexplained
malady these days. Sure, it
usually works, but I know I'm not
alone in being nervous about
this. I'm not the paranoid sort,
but the kind of things I hear
about superdiseases is enough to
make me spontaneously bleed from
the eyes. Can you imagine a John
Wayne movie where he dies of Mad
Cow Disease? Funny, sure, but the
Duke and I would both prefer
bullets over germs any
day. The
fact that we haven't been
clobbered by biological weapons
should be soothing, but instead I
just feel like we're overdue.
Eventually the librarian of death
is going to come a
callin'. And
when she does, I'll be right
there saying I told you so,
assuming I'm not melting into a
puddle of biological soup. Of
course, if someone told me I had
just been exposed to a mega-germ,
my heart would probably explode
on the spot, and with my luck, I
wouldn't have any
aspirin.
"I
literally have employers begging
me to get people out of jail
because they need
employees." Ted
Nelson, supervisor of the adult
probation office in Des Moines,
as printed in the November 12,
1999 Des Moines
Register. Tell
a kid a joke and he laughs for a
day, Patrick
Keller will never play the violin
again. This article is (c) 1999
Patrick Keller, Gern Blansten
Productions. You may redistribute
this piece, provided the text is
unaltered and it contains this
notice. As always, if you know
someone sick and twisted who
might like this stuff, let me
know. Blah blah blah e-mail me at
blansten@iname.com
blah blah blah
Also
featured in the not-so
latest: All
contents of this web site -- even the
periods -- are TM & © Patrick
Keller, Gern Blansten Productions, so
don't try to steal 'em. Any unlawful
distribution, copying or non-educational
use is highly frowned upon, and will be
prosecuted when I get enough money to hire
a lawyer. Violators will be spanked.
Shoplifters will be persecuted.
Prosecutors will be violated. |
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