A Dream
It has long been a dream of mine to just lay (lie?) in bed all day. All day, all night, just chillin’ there in my Spongebob pants.
Part of the dream is getting phone calls with people asking, “Anthony, where are you?” In response I would say, “Oh, just laying in bed.”
“But it’s 3 in the afternoon!” they would exclaim, thinking I could be shocked back to reality. “Really?” I would say, “I thought it was much later.”
A Nightmare
Well, my dream became reality, only it was a reality far too real to be fun. Saturday morning, about 9 a.m., I began to feel ill. By 10:00 I was in full-blown stomach virus meltdown. I made it to my bedroom and didn’t leave until just before this post.
On Thursday and Friday our oldest daughter, Alicia, came to visit. She stayed in our bed, sick with whatever my wife and I both caught. Friday night my wife became ill, then I followed.
But hey, there I was, over 24 hours in bed (except for the multiple trips to the toilet and the occasional cooling off time on the bathroom floor).
Be Careful…
You know the old saying, “Be careful what you wish for?” Well, be careful what you wish for.
Laying (lying) in bed all day and night is no fun, especially when you can’t do anything. I couldn’t read, watch TV, listen to music, get comfortable, or even enjoy crackers and water.
Important Things
But I can say that spending all that time in bed sick as a dog (although I have never seen a dog so sick) reminded me of what is most important – not being sick.
When one is puking his guts up, along with incurring the revenge of Montezuma, Facebook, WordPress, Twitter, texting, and any other form of modern communication is worthless. Relationships are even worthless if they are as sick as you are. The most important thing is to not be sick, unless you have other family who is willing to treat you like a spoiled baby and meet your every perceived need.
Thankfully, after coming home from a youth outing Saturday night, our other daughters were able to see the humor in two adults in misery. Considering how this stuff is so contagious, I wonder how important they will think it was to make fun of mommy and daddy in a day or two?
They’re just lucky they brought us jello and water when we asked. That was important, too.
Oh, One More Thing…
Years ago, when I was in Romania, I became similarly ill. Well, actually I was much worse, because that illness lasted for nearly a week – I almost died.
Do you know what I was given to make me feel better? Green tea, white rice, and goat cheese. Sorry, but it didn’t help.
What I wanted was Sprite (or something like it) over real, honest-to-goodness ice. You know, H2o that is frozen into little tiny cubes. My host family said, “Nu, Nu, Nu!” I said, “Da, Da, Da!”
Long story short, a U.S. Navy medic who was traveling with us agreed to find a carbonated drink (which ended up being mineral water with fruit syrup) and some bottle caps. We boiled some water, filled the caps, and snuck them into a tiny freezer. That night I had ice in my drink.
American ingenuity – what a wonderful thing!
“Memorial Day is a time to honor the lives of those who would rather die than take a knee when our national anthem is played. But they will fight and die for the rights of those who kneel.”
The time that our current president has been in office has been the equivalent of turning up the burner under the pot a notch at a time. Each year he has turned the dial, cranked up the heat, and slowly but surely caused my emotions to boil.
The Recovering Legalist 