Stilettos, Stoli & Scribbles ~ Served With A Twist

You know that old chestnut, “Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug?” I used it on my niece last week to to explain away her rotten day. That’s what I get for being so cliche. Today, it’s my turn to be the bug. Or rather I have one.

It’s not that I want to share my cold with you, but I am compelled. No other thoughts are allowed into my clogged head and certainly nothing else is getting out.

I don’t know how it happened. I was fine yesterday. Then under cover of darkness, in the wee hours of the morning, some demented fairy stole into my room and stuffed my head full of cotton.

© Brian Froud, Good Faeries/Bad Faeries

I woke up, covers kicked to the side, and completely unable to breathe. I can’t even blame it on the fact that while it was in the 70s over the weekend, today, on my way to work, it was 40 something with a gusting wind measured with an actual “chill”.  And of course the air conditioning has already been turned on in my office (“Calendar says Spring. Whadayagonnado?”), so I sit here in the middle of May, in front of my space heater, wearing two sweaters and typing with fingerless gloves, like a modern-day Bob Cratchit.

No, none of that caused my cold, it’s just a big bonus package to make me feel extra miserable.  Hell, it might not even be a cold. Could be allergies. I Googled, looking for answers on how to tell the difference.

The biggest difference is the presence of a fever. Without a thermometer, how am I supposed to tell if I  have a fever or I’m having a hot flash? My coworkers are offering me tea and drugs from their desk-drawer pharmacopeia all while remarking on my lovely pallor which contrasts nicely with the circles under my eyes. (Upside: resisting the Kane’s hand-crafted, artisanal donuts, which my boss so thoughtfully brought in today and are as big as a tractor tire, has never been easier.) I want to go home and burrow under my blankets. I know I need only ask. But leaving would require movement…and going back outside and walking…all…that…way…to…the…train. My inner five year old is whining “Someone carry me!”

Nope. I’ll just sit here, slack jawed and glassy eyed, staring at my screen, waiting for the drugs to kick in and day dreaming of the hot toddy I’ll have tonight. I’m sure someone will pry my fingers from my keyboard when the whistle blows or at least punch out for me before turning off the lights.

Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS

And how are you today? Bright eyed and bushy-tailed, ready for the work week? Feel free to tell me all about it in the comments so that I can live vicariously.