This week was finals again and I woke up with a killer cold on Monday. I haven’t had a cold in years but don’t go thinking how lucky I am because I’m a huge allergy sufferer so it basically always feels like I have a cold. Now that I have one for real I see how different they are. With allergies you feel like you’re right on the cusp of getting something worse, kind of subliminally shitty. With a flat-out cold you’re just a walking wet cow pie.
Normally I don’t go to the doctor until I’m a candidate for intravenous antibiotics but this time what with finals and us going on vacation soon I went right away and he advised me on which over-the-counter products to take as well as giving me an Rx for antibiotics should things get worse while we’re gone.
I was disappointed not to see Nyquil on my doctor’s list of suggested remedies because me and Nyquil are likethis. Denis Leary used to do a thing on Nyquil in his No Cure for Cancer routine and he called it the Green Death. He scoffed at the cherry-flavored one and the orange-colored one and the store brand one and advised going right to the Original Green Death and I totally agree. Anything that tastes like it could dissolve lead paint must have healing power.
Yesterday at one of my finals everyone seemed to be acting loopy until I figured out I was just over-medicated. The proctor kept repeating instructions and the same police siren kept passing under our window and I felt locked in a spiral of waning Nyquil and current Dayquil with the Hall’s lozenge clicking against my teeth so loud I thought I would scream. Then just before the test began a classmate came in late, very upset that a piece of personal electronic equipment of hers had been stolen from the computer lab when she stepped away from her computer for a few minutes.
This was unsettling because it obviously meant a fellow student had taken it which was worse than the theft I experienced in the parking lot in What’s Mine is Yours because my crime was likely committed by a non-student. Then she said she filed a police report and requested the entire school be fingerprinted since the thief had taken her valuable out of its case and left the case behind, no doubt with incriminating evidence all over it. She said this very matter of fact, like it would be a logical thing to expect. Thanks to all the current crime investigation shows there’s barely a person alive who doesn’t know GSR stands for gunshot residue. So now I’m picturing Gil Grissom and the CSI lab descending on my final exam with Sara Sidle patting me down and it just wasn’t a day I was up for it.
A million hours later it finally got to be bedtime and I put on my soft, snuggly black fleece pajamas with the red piping around the cuffs. I wish I could remember where I got these because I would go back and buy a case of them. And then because the cold weather makes my fingertips crack, I tried this remedy I read about in a magazine. I coated my hands with a thick moisturizer and then covered them with little white cotton gloves they sell in the drugstore for just this purpose. When I was all done I left the bathroom and headed for bed.
Halfway into the bedroom, Husband looked up and grinned at me. Not knowing what this was about I stopped and shrugged my shoulders in my black pajamas with the red trim and held my white-gloved hands in the air like, “What?”
He grinned even wider and said, “Wait right there, Minnie. Mickey went to get the car.”
And now boys and girls, it’s time to say goodbye to all our company. See you real soon.
Daughter’s Featured Fotos say Childhood: It Ain’t Just For Breakfast
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generosity
babar, the rebel years
small things in neon lights