Sneezy Rider

Monday morning:  After a brief dabbling into sidewalk ice-dancing, followed by a light bit of graffiti-scraping at the bus stop (whoever Coni is, he has clearly mistaken my bus stop for his), I found myself feeling my forehead with the back of my hand.

Am I feverish?

My head!  My head is enormous!  Was it this big when I left home this morning?  And my ears – does anyone else hear that buzzing?  And the eyeballs.  What’s with my eyeballs? 

I take out a compact, take a look. 

Holy cow, did I look like this when I left the house?

And that’s when the coughing begins.  And with each cough comes the explosions in my head – near the front, somewhere between knowing how to crochet and my scheme on how to notify someone that I am in distress (it involves holding and actually drinking a Bud Lite).

For decades, I have banked on the words of a blue-lidded dental hygienist.  Palpating the glands on each side of my jaw, she had said, “You never get sick.”

And since that day, I have relied on her wise words.  Do I get sick?  I do not.  And you want to know why?  Because a dental hygienist in the 80s told me that I didn’t.

But here I am.  With every cough, bits of my brain are hurtled toward the cranium, my eyes pop and water, my throat burns with indignity. 

I never get sick.

Unless, of course, I do.

Send soup and foot rubs.