On colds...

If there's anything that I really dislike, something that can really take me down a few rungs, it's a first winter cold. I was blessed with one of those this past weekend. It began Saturday morning upon waking up, when I noticed that I had an incredibly sore throat. This is normally the harbinger of worse symptoms and I have to say that I haven't been disappointed so far. Today I decided to sally forth into the workplace regardless. Oh, I'm sure the gang could manage well enough without me, I just don't have any sick days left to my credit. I used up all mine for the current fiscal year, as I was recovering from the bike accident.

Be that as it may, it's now developed over the last weekend to that stage where a sneeze or a cough, creates an emergency situation, where either the head's sinus cavities spontaneously drain and send one scurrying for tissues, or cause a full-out sprint for the nearest washroom. This is something I try to do out of eyeshot of my colleagues, as let's face it... it's never a pretty sight to see someone eject fifteen pounds of mucus from one's nasal apertures. One thing I absolutely loathe, is those instances where you think you're prepared to blow your nose... you think you have a sufficient amount of tissue on hand to handle any contingency, but when you blow, it's like all of a sudden you've managed to tap into extra reserves of the stuff. I can't possibly imagine where else it might be stored, other than one's head... and I know my head is not near big enough to contain what all it emits on an hourly basis. Is there some sort of secret reservoir in my neck? Does it come up from my feet...? What??? The ensuing flood generally makes a mockery of what you have waiting to stem it.

Worse yet... as you inhale to get ready to blow, you suck in the waiting Kleenex, wetting it with your tongue and rendering it useless in the face of the ensuing tsunami of goo... Yes, these are the days best spent out of the glare of the public eye. With only the least amount of control over either of your extremities, you're only a nanosecond away from some sort of tragic bodily release, which will scar your fellow employees and leave your self-esteem in ragged tatters. Your co-workers may initially admire your dedication to the job, but that admiration will soon vanish if you turn them off food for the next three weeks. Then there's this weird space/time continuum that you go through, where time slows to a veritable crawl. I swear it's been 1700hrs for the last two and a half hours... It's like 1800 hrs will never get here. And then there is the long bus ride home... How marvellous. What a great way to cap off the day...

Yes, there's no doubt that I would have been a far happier camper, had I been able to stay home in bed, or drooling on the downstairs sofa... But so far, so good. One can only hope that tomorrow will be a better day. Things could always be worse, right?