With the cold and flu season just around the corner, have you ever noticed how differently people go about handling the reality of getting/being sick? For instance, there is the relentless detective who above all else, wants to know just how he got sick. Who was the culprit who shared their unwanted germs and is there any way to punish him or her? Was it the thoughtless co-worker who never covers his mouth when he coughs, or the friend who always insists on shaking hands when he meets others, or maybe even a relative who visits even when they feel like they are “coming down with something”? Worst of all, could it have been one of the grandkids, who are always covered with germs from the schools they attend, and are too cute to get mad at (which is usually how I get sick by the way).
Once good and sick, people seem to deal with illness in very different ways. There are those who follow the example of a good dog, who, when sick, will just go outside and hide in a big bush until he is feeling better. These people want to be left alone in their room with maybe a computer or television set to connect them to the outside world, but they don’t want visitors or anyone feeling sorry for them. They seem to understand that “this, too, shall pass”, and they just want to get on with it and suffer in silence.
But there are also those who are anything but silent when they get sick and want the whole world to know exactly what is wrong with them. They want all the gory details of their illness known to anyone and everyone willing to listen, and they don’t seem to care how disgusting those details may be. If they have been endlessly barfing into bedside buckets or racing back and forth to the bathroom with gut-wrenching diarrhea, they want that known to one and all. And they also seem to lose any sense of decorum, not caring if they give off sonic booms when they cut the cheese or blow their nose so loudly that it sounds like a male elephant sending out a mating call.
There are also those (mostly women for some reason) who seem to decide that since they are sick, they no longer have to bother with such things as combing their hair or putting on makeup or taking showers or wearing the clothes they normally do. Instead, they somehow come up with worn and tattered outfits that would make even a bag lady look desirable by comparison. In fact, their logic seems to be that the more disgusting-looking they can make themselves, the faster the germs which have invaded their bodies will want to leave. They also seem to like to wrap themselves up like mummies and turn the heat up so high that everyone else in the house is dripping with sweat.
Anyway, when I was mentioning to a friend the other day that I was thinking about trying to make a column out of the above observations, she quickly noted that I had left out the one very important ingredient which might actually make my column funny.
“And what might that be?” I asked with interest.
“The man,” she said, “which is all of you by the way – who is absolutely sure he’s going to die every time he gets a sniffle! And this is how it usually goes down. As soon as a man starts to feel a little achy or feverish, he becomes the grouch from hell. He can’t go to work or be bothered with the household chores or helping out with the kids. And if he is actually sick, and you happen to be his wife or girlfriend, then he quickly becomes the demanding grouch from hell. `Honey, get me this, get me that, I need lots of juices, go to the store and get me gallons of orange juice, bring me some aspirin, go back to the store and get some cough syrup, are there any pills, potions or patches in the house that will save me, I don’t care if you’re sick, too, I’m much sicker than you, in fact I’m the sickest person on this planet, no kidding, this is getting serious, you better call the doctor, how fast can the doctor see me, do you think I need to see a specialist, maybe it’s time to go to the emergency room, hey, doesn’t anyone care, I’m dying here!’.
“Are we men really that bad when we get sick?” I asked, returning her smile.
“Well, my husband sure is!” she said. “But do you really want to know what the worst part of him getting sick is?”
“Sure,” I said.
“He always somehow manages to produce gallons of this incredibly yucky green stuff from his nose. You would think science would find some way to make something useful from it. Maybe a super-glue, or an additive to keep household appliances running smoothly, or possibly even a bio-fuel that could save the world from global warming.”