I went to bed last night at 6:43 p.m., which is the nice thing about having a cold, you get your rest.
In fact, it may be more than a cold, and right there I have turned into my father. My father has to make everyone around him as miserable as he is when he is ill, with the moaning and letting you know every symptom. One time he was going on and on about how he was at death's door and how he could see the light at the end of the tunnel and I said, "Father, it is just a cold" and he said, "It's MORE than a COLD, June."
Really, the only reason it was more than a cold was because he was experiencing it.
Nevertheless, my more-than-a-cold started to concern me when yesterday morning I started brushing my teeth and MOTHER OF GOD why did it hurt so much? My TEETH were so PAINFUL! And do you know I stood there in agony and brushed them the whole two minutes anyway? I have one of those timers on my toothbrush. I do not mean that I have a regular toothbrush with a gigantic kitchen timer on it; it is an electric toothbrush and it makes this series of warning buzzes at two minutes. But perhaps you knew that, you highfalutin' oral hygiene person, you.
Anyway, I went to work and told Computer Guy, who for some reason I tell the entire minutae of my life to, mainly because he is usually willing to listen to it (except for the time Marvin called to tell me the toilet was broken and I might as well poop at work. I told that to Computer Guy and he said, "Yeah, I think you think we are way closer friends than we are"), and apparently Computer Guy is also an MD, because he says every time a bell rings, and angel gets its wings. He also said every time your teeth hurt like that, it means you have a sinus infection.
Well, crap. You KNOW I do not want to call my scary doctor, the one who said I had a brain tumor. I didn't even tell you the horrifying things he said to me when my mammogram came back suspicious; suffice it to say by the time I hung up with him I was in a BALL in the couch shaking. So if I call him with this, he will tell me that several people die of sinus infections every year and by this afternoon I will end up having facial surgery that somehow insurance will not cover.
Isn't there a possibility that this will just go away on its own? Isn't that what your immune system does? I do not want to pop antibiotics at every turn. I mean, when that anthrax letter comes to me, I want the Cipro to work, you know? I want antibiotics for the big stuff, not this.
Anyway, by the time I got home last night, the left side of my face felt like I had a bag of hot beans under it. It was all I could do to get that poor dog at day care and get home. I went to bed in my work shirt and necklace, and tuckered Tallulah came to bed too. She got under the covers and put her head on my leg, spreading her jowls all over my calf. We were a dynamic and exciting duo, is what we were. We were kind of like Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, except we were more Exhausted Woman and Dying Girl.
And do you know an hour or two later Marvin woke us up? He came in to tell me he was (a) going to the gym and (b) planning to drink the last of the cranberry juice.
Okay, really? You really had to wake up a sick person to tell her these pressing things? A NOTE would not have sufficed? I do not see any reason to awaken a sick person except to say carbon monoxide is leaking and we need to evacuate.
And the cranberry juice. Did he think I was in bed because I had worried myself sick about some pending urinary tract infection he was going to pick up?
Tallulah, who was still under the blankets, had come up to similarly glare at Marvin, and the way her head stuck out of the blankets she looked just like the Virgin Mary if the Virgin Mary had, you know, a fuzzy snout. Marvin didn't know she was under there, and he laughed and said, "What is she doing?"
Neither one of us dignified him with an answer. I rolled over and went back to sleep and the Virgin Tallulah went back to her rightful place with her lips smacking on my calf.
Anyway I am up now and feel less awful. Perhaps I'll wake up Marvin and tell him I plan to drink some coffee.
