OH, LUDDITE THIS

Well, it only took ten days, but I finally got comments working properly. Sheesh.

Is anybody still reading this?

TBP CLASSIC: JUST WUD THIG ABTA ANUDDA

Note: In honor of my latest respiratory misadventures, I’m digging out an old essay I wrote about the joys of having a cold. This is from October of 1998.

The title of this latest installment refers to that wonderful experience of trying to work (and having the busiest week of your life) whilst you are doped out of your mind on Sudafed. There has been a vicious cold floating around here (one of my parishioners has had it for a month) and said demonic virus is currently making its home in . . . well, it was in my throat, then my sinuses, thence my lungs, and currently in my ears, where it is trying valiantly to return to my throat, using my right eardrum as a trampoline. I have been on the Fed since Wednesday night with little to no discernible effect, apart from giving me some very interesting sleeping patterns. Even with my Buck Rogers Space Cadet TV antenna, you can’t find anything good on at 3:30 on a Friday morning . . .

Definition of a pretty bad cold: You can’t smell vinegar. Definition of a very, very bad cold: You can’t taste vinegar. Or cayenne pepper. Or a Hall’s Extra-Strength cough drop. Or anything. I have had colds which were bad enough to make me think I couldn’t taste anything; this one takes the cake. Friday at noon I ate a bowl of vegetable soup. Nothing. No flavor at all. That night I ate a peanut butter sandwich. Peanut butter is very, very scary when you cannot taste it. Come to think of it, so are most foods. When it’s nothing but a texture, food is more an annoyance than a joy. Cabbage feels like the roof of your mouth just peeled off and landed on your tongue. Orange juice just hurts. Bread could be drywall for all you know.

You’re tired all the time until you lay down to try to go to sleep. Then you twitch and flip and destroy the covers in a pathetic attempt to find that magical cool spot. Then, once you find it, your nerves turn glacial and you bury yourself beneath the covers again. For about thirty seconds. Lather, rinse, repeat. And now I don’t even have Art Bell on the radio to keep me company and remind me that I don’t have the most pathetic excuse of a life on Earth.

Comes the morning and you’re not sure if you slept. You fumble your way through the sacrament of coffee. First cup gets poured. It’s like drinking a hot, oily glass of water. You take the lid off a garbage can. Big whiff. Zilch. You sit down at the computer to work on one of the three sermons you have to preach in the next four days (funeral, wedding, just-plain-Sunday). The worsd comm uot verry distreptic and not every weurlof. Crap. I still need Sudafed, but in two hours I’ll be a zombie. Off to the bathroom. Two little red pills. Two aspirin. Regis and Kathie Lee. The pillow conforms to your head as you finally find a position that doesn’t turn you into a giant muscle contraction. Sleep finally comes, fitfully. You dream of ordering office supplies, a dream more frightening than a vision of the apocalypse. Suddenly you realize you’re talking on the phone to a telemarketer. You quiver, afraid you may have just authorized the construction of a missile silo in your driveway. Either that, or you agreed to let somebody send you some crappy fundraising candy.

Ill-advisedly, you set out to visit a couple parishioners. You greet their friendly and reckless dog. They advise you that the dog had been in a tangle with a skunk the night before. You are greatly relieved that they allow you into the house anyway. You sit down to a meal with looks fantastic and feels pretty good, but for the love of God you can’t tell if you’re eating pork chops or beaver tails. Following dinner, well, you must have driven home, because you’re there and so is the car . . .

The next morning you can taste the coffee a little, even smell it a touch. You lift the lid on the garbage AND IT SMELLS THIS BAD. It’s a wonder you’re not dead. You look out the window just to make sure. No pillars of brimstone, so you’re either still alive or your parishioners are right about the exact location of heaven . . . you just thought heaven would be a little nearer Barnes & Noble, that’s all.

Assuming the right side of my head does not explode, I can look forward to a week filled with less excitement. It’s already off to a rotten start. I spent all afternoon at a meeting during which we transacted exactly one piece of business (we named the organization) and the chair believed that we had actually accomplished quite a bit. Gross. On the whole, I’d rather have six more sinuses to get infected than endure that again . . .