I am sick

I am sick.

Not full-blown, but I can feel it coming...like when you see the storm clouds up ahead and watch as they move in your direction. It's on the horizon. Now I just sit here and wait for the impending downpour.

I hate being sick. I think I hate it the most because I feel like I have lost control. That this tiny little bug has infiltrated MY personal space and I did NOT invite him to do that. Doesn't he know that you need an invitation before you can set up shop in someone else's body to go about destroying them?

And so the problem is that I can't blame this brainless little bug who sure is smart considering he has no brain, so I must blame someone else. I can't help it. I blame, it's just what I do. I must assign blame to someone for my misery that definitely was NOT MY FAULT.

I mean, it's not like I have been walking around with a pocket full of bugs, just waiting for the right moment to give myself a good 'ol dose of misery. NO...someone GAVE ME this shitty little speck of doom. And so I make my hit list.

Who could it be? Who could be the evil monster that didn't wash their hands and then shook mine? Or picked his nose and then bagged my groceries? Who could be the little germ-carrier that sneezed all over my kids' toys so that I got infected when I picked up at the end of the day? Who ever it is...they will pay.

As God as my witness, I will make them pay.

So that gives me some comfort...knowing that I can track them down and kill them.

Actually no...what I can do is get some other gnarly bug and then sneeze all over THEM so that they are infected with a new strain of misery...yeah, that's what I will do.

Gosh...now I know how super-villains start becoming well, villainous...it all begins by catching a cold from some idiot. SEE...if people would just cough in to their blasted ELBOWS, instead of their hands...we would never need Batman or Superman...and the world could just live in peace.

No really though. What moron started the trend of coughing in to their hands? Is that not the dumbest thing you ever heard of? Like, oh, I am just going to completely cover this surface THAT I TOUCH EVERYTHING WITH, with a bunch of rotten, communicable, awful germs that are just waiting to make someone else's life miserable. Then I will go and shake hands, and touch stuff and just wipe everyone out with my plague.

I think that when you see someone cough in to their hands in public it should be socially akin to them picking their nose and eating their boogers, or passing gas loudly. They should be ostracized. They should be humiliated. They should be made to feel so socially retarded that they would never even think of doing it again.

If all of those germs were instead funnelled in to the safe recesses of one's sweater or shirt at the elbow, they could just live out the remainder of their days in some poly blend and die like they were intended to.

Seriously...I am going to forward this to the CDC. There should be a campaign, ads, the President could do an address on it...or better- I will get a Hollywood star to make this their pet project. Yes, I need a Susan Sarandon to hock this.

Along with loosing control of my bodily functions, I worry. And as if I need MORE stuff to worry about. Now I will worry about infecting the kids, or Gavin. I will worry if my kissing Garrett will infect him, or if my touching his food before I feed it to him will infect him.

I will wash my hands one thousand times a day in the vain attempt to keep this destructo-bug confined to me. I will worry every time I touch my nose, or lick my fingers. I will try to keep people from sharing spoons or cups. And then every time someone in the family clears their throats, or sniffs, I will know that I have failed to keep my infected, rotting corpse from infiltrating their pure virgin vessels. Now I AM THE CARRIER OF DEATH.

In my family there were two schools of thought about illnesses. My dad was the "Don't-come-within-one-hundred-yards-of-me-if-you-are-sick-type" and not until you had a note from your doctor, declaring you completely curred, would he come near you again.

My Mom used to laugh about it, saying that he "attracted the illnesses, because everyone knows that whatever you fear, is attracted to you"...duh! Those little airborne germs that you thought were just moving about randomly...oh no, they have their marching orders from the giant germ in the sky. And whenever the all seeing eye of this germ hears so much as a whisper of fear from someone about getting sick, he sends out his minions to cure them of their wimpiness, via a nice bout with a head cold or a run in with a stomach flu. You'll learn eventually. Just don't fear sickness, and then you'll never be sick.

This has worked super well for my Mom...unless you count every year during cold and flu season, when she gets a cold or a flu. If the good vibes don't keep you well, then her back up plan has always been overdosing on Vitamin C and drinking water until you hear it sloshing around in your stomach. She actually is not to blame for these last two beliefs. They come from the Higher Up's...meaning my Grandmother.

So, I am a nut, born of two complete nuts, who came from even nuttier nuts.

And so you see that getting sick is not just about sniffles and chicken soup with me. It's about guilt, blame, worry and childhood trauma.