Sickness the Learning Experience

For those of you who didn’t know, I spent the entire week last week being as close as humanly possible to feeling like death, without actually dying. I can’t remember the last time I felt that awful. Well, I’m happy to report that I made it out alive! (well almost, I’m still not quite better) Now I am not writing this in hopes of gaining sympathy from those who have not already offered it. I am here to inform you that I’ve learned a few things during my time in bed and I wanted to share this insight with you.

1. Home Remedies Suck

Everyone has one. There isn’t a person, I know, that doesn’t have some ‘remedy’ their mom taught them. Every single one of these ALWAYS works when that person has the flu (which I had). Well I learned they fucking suck balls.

“Jimmy you should eat plenty of Chicken Soup.”

Perhaps my body was in a generous mood when I followed this little tidbit of help because no more than one hour after struggling through a bowl of luke warm soup my body decided to offer it back up to the earth. I hope my toilet bowel appreciated that gift, because I know my stomach didn’t.

“A hot shower will help that headache”

Ok I wish I could remember who offered this advice to me. I really do. That way the next time they have a headache, I can go over to their house and beat them on their head with a pair of drum sticks, because that’s what the shower felt like. It did a great job of making my full body ache go away, but that’s probably because that shower made my head hurt so badly that I couldn’t feel anything else on my body.

“Just run your hands under hot water to ease your headache.”

I shit you not…this is a remedy someone suggested to me. Well, it worked. I ran my hands under scalding hot water and (much like my full body ache described above) the headache just went away. This, however, was at the cost of me burning the shit out of my hands and thus, having a new problem on my hands (no pun intended). Who knew that your tolerance for temperature goes down when you’re really sick?

2. I Prefer to Remove OJ from my System Via Urination

Sounds silly, but it’s true. OJ is the worst thing you could EVER drink while you are sick with the flu. It tastes WAY better going in the ‘in’ door than it does going out the ‘in’ door. Must be the acid from the OJ, but whatever it is, it fucking burns and it doesn’t end. I am still curious as to how I managed to vomit up MORE orange juice than was actually consumed. I drank probably half a cup and threw up probably half a gallon. Perhaps my body has been saving it up for an occasion just like this. Well played stomach

3. Techno Music Makes it Hard to Sleep

I really wish I hadn’t learned this lesson, but alas, I did. For all you out there with roommates, I’ll send you this suggestion…if you are sick…and want to go to sleep, kindly ask your roommate to keep the blaring techno music to a minimum as it becomes very difficult to drift off into a sleepy comatose with the back beat of Sandstorm thumping through every wall of the house. It is better to ask before, because who knows if you’ll have the energy to stand up and bitch slap the idiot for putting on in the first place, while you are still sick.

4. Daytime TV Sucks Monkey Balls

Normally, being home sick from work is like a godsend for me. If I stay home from work it means I’m really sick…but rarely too sick to play video games. So my days home from work are normally filled with lots of sleeping and playing video games, joy! Well, this time I was so sick that I would get dizzy playing the simplest of video games, so no Nintendo for me. So I turned to my arch villain, cable TV, for a safe haven from boredom.

For some reason I remember daytime TV being a lot better than it is. I can remember sick days of never ending game shows leading right in to a healthy four hour dose of ‘after school’ cartoons (that started at 1:00 for some reason, I wish I had gone to that school). Today, TV fucking sucks during the day. No cartoons (worth watching), no game shows, no sports…fucking nothing but vapid soap operas and bullshit QVC programming. I am very upset about this.

The no sports thing, is fucking bullshit, there should ALWAYS be something good on ESPN. ESPN was created based on the acronym: Entertainment and Sports Programming Network. I’m not sure which executive at ESPN decided this, but let me be the first to tell them…FISHING IS NOT A SPORT…NOR IS IT FUCKING ENTERTAINING. In fact, its god awful to watch on TV. I don’t know what idiots actually do watch that, but I feel bad for them. There is no way anyone’s time could be spent doing anything dumber. I’d rather watch my fingernails grow.

5. It’s More Fun Watching the NBA Playoffs with my Friends

Now for those of you who live in a cave, Game 2 of the Lakers vs. Suns occurred on Wednesday April 26. I was so sick at that point that I can’t even remember exactly what happened…that’s right it was as if I drunkenly blacked out…that’s how sick I was. However, because I have such great friends, instead of going out, on Friday night, to a bar crowded with Laker fans, happily drinking themselves into oblivion, all my friends decided to come over and watch game 3 with me while I was still bed-ridden. HA! Yeah right. My friends are assholes and left me for dead. But I’m sure cheering to myself was just as much fun as they all had while out at a sports bar...what with their high fiving strangers every time the Lakers did something amazing or their darts during half time or post game round or two of pool. I bet they were jealous of my white rice and Theraflu dinner I had while they were stuff their faces with hot wings, nachos, beer and Jaeger shots…Yeah I bet I had just as much fun as they did.

So I can only hope that you will heed that which I have mentioned here…as only a fool would want to experience the week I just had.