Summer is over and it’s not the layers of rain pouring over us telling me so. No, it’s Man-Wonder turning into his annual glompy ball of feverous cold-spewing germs.
Listen, he’s a nice man. Until he gets sick. Then he doesn’t merely have a cold—no, he has torturous chills, raging fevers, lung-bursting coughs and gunk-filled sinuses ready to explode should he breathe too often.
Don’t believe me? Ask him. He’ll tell you just how close he is to death’s trapdoor.
All day long as I tiptoe past the closed bedroom door ( yes, I am guilty of shutting it tight), I hear pitiful moans like “Kill me now and put me out of my misery” (Lord, there are moments!), or “OMG, how much mucus can a living human hold?” (Yeah, that one makes me want to never, ever enter that room again). Or when I ask if there’s anything I can get for him, I get a limp hand wave and a pathetic “No, no, you’ve done so much already. I’m fine just laying here”—which really means ‘Come baby me until I’m all better ‘kay.”
I mean really, is it a man thing or is he just super-weinie when it comes to colds?
And that’s pretty much what my week has been like—Man-wonder snuffling like a demented dog behind a closed door while Mom shuffles back and forth between the living room and her bedroom because each time she gets arrives in a room she can’t remember why she’s there or what she wanted to ask me. At least she’s getting exercise – right?
And I have learned where I get my potty mouth from when frustrated . . .thanks Mom!
But the one thing I am truly thankful for? The six-foot by three-foot mirror leaning against a wall in the kitchen because it gives me a quiet place to stand and try to convince myself that the look on my face is a smile.
They say if you fake it you will eventually make it.
I’m working on it.
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