For a week now, I have been in the grips of a terrible virus. It began as a feeling of swelling in my larynx that made my voice a bit raspy and felt weird when I swallowed. Sunday morning, it was a sore throat. I felt a little tired and out of sorts all day Monday, but it was day three of a visit from the in-laws, so I attributed it to that. V came down with croup Sunday night, so I figured we had the same virus. She ended up missing school for the whole week. Odie was home with her for two days, then I took over. I struggled through work Tuesday and barely survived Wednesday. I literally sat at the front of my class like Jabba the Hut (minus Salacious Crumb or a slave girl on a chain) holding toilet paper to my dripping nose and trying to give grammar instruction in between bouts of spasmodic coughing.
When I got home and discovered V woke up from her nap with a 103.7 degree fever, I enthusiastically volunteered to take my turn staying home with her. I hear there was a shortage of subs at work and no one picked up my assignment. The same thing happened on Friday, but I assume the administration handled it somehow. I’m kind of scared to go back tomorrow and find out what my kids did to my room, but I’m willing to let bygones be bygones. Just this once.
I’m a miserable patient. Odie deserves to win this month’s Family Jesus award. He has dealt beautifully with a 36 weeks pregnant sick wife and an equally sick two year-old. I’m also indebted to my mother-in-law, because when it comes to complaining, she really broke him in for me.
I have horrible pain when I cough. I never believed that people could really break their ribs coughing, but I believe it now. My left sinus is completely blocked with mucus. The whole left side of my face hurt so bad that I couldn’t tell if it was a sinus infection, an ear infection, or a toothache. The phenergan with codeine (which is called “sizzurp” on the street, Jessica tells me) gives me a splitting headache and isn’t worth taking. My home remedy of Robitussin DM and an extra-strength Tylenol is a passable substitute. Thanks to Odie, I’ve been able to nap from ten a.m. to nearly two, including V’s nap. Unfortunately, I have to breathe through my mouth the whole time, so I have a brutal sore throat.
Oh, and I’m 36 weeks pregnant, so the constant heartburn contributes to making me the miserable bitch I am today.
And I know it’s pretty bad because I offered Odie a little somethin’-somethin’ and he politely declined. This is the guy who reminds me every day (sometimes several times a day) that if I feel like a little romance, just let him know.
Remember how all the Pepe Le Pew cartoons ended? Pepe relentlessly pursued his feline would-be conquest until she somehow ended up in a barrel of rainwater. Soaking wet, coughing and hacking, disheveled and no longer accidentally disguised as a skunk, she was anything but appealing to Monsieur Le Pew, who hastily made excuses, and then a quick exit.
It pretty much went down like that.
I go back to work tomorrow, even though I don’t feel up to it yet. I’m out of sick days and I will get no pay for the two days I missed last week. At this point, I need to either suck it up (and by “it” I mean the insane amount of mucus I’m carrying around in my head), or just go on early maternity leave and take 50% pay for the last 9 days of school. I’m going to choose the former, because I don’t have it all wrapped up at work enough to just hand it over to someone else. I also gave my principal my word that I would see this through to the end. I want to be that person who keeps her word.
Sure is tempting to go the other way, though.
The Friendly Pedant by Mrs. Odie 
It’s a man’s world
My readers are almost exclusively women, except for one very sophisticated Frenchman who makes the best planked salmon you’ll ever eat.
Today I heard a story about a Nobel Prize winning author who claims no woman is his equal as a writer. I’ll paraphrase. Basically, women suck as writers. We have too many “feelings” and our view of the world is narrow. He claims no woman is truly the master of a home, and that is clear in her writing as well.
Well, Niapaul, you can suck it. How’s that for sentimentality? And using Jane Austen to underscore your point? She’s been dead for 194 years. Have you ever picked up a book by someone else with a vagina? I don’t like Jane Austen’s books either, but she’s hardly the voice of my generation. Of course, we’re all alike, we women writers, so one would hardly need to read more than one of us in order to form a comprehensive understanding. Unlike men, we can all be categorized and judged together. There are “writers” and then there are “women writers.”
Writers are interesting to women, but the opposite is often not true. I really hate that there’s only one genre for women, and it’s “chick lit.” Mommy Blogger is a subgenre of chick lit. Men don’t want to read about anything that comes out of our vaginas, just about what goes in. And even then, I think they’d rather see pictures than read a bunch of frilly prose.
Now I’m being unfair to men, just because of one Nobel Prize winning author who once demonstrated his impatience that his wife didn’t die of cancer faster so he could marry his side-piece. I can see where “sentimentality” would bother a man like that. And since he’s unlikely to see a vagina up close that isn’t bought and paid up for the hour before he dies, he has lots to be bitter about.
So here’s some chick lit for you: my week. V and I have been suffering from a terrible, tenacious virus. For her, it started with croup Sunday night. I came down with a cough so violent on Wednesday that I think I’ve pulled every muscle in my back hacking away. My OB was sweet enough to give me something called Phenergan with Codeine syrup. A former addict friend of mine assured me that at another part of his life, he would have followed me to my car from the pharmacy counter and mugged me for it in the parking lot. This little tidbit not only made me vow to be more cautious about leaving the pharmacy counter with narcotics in the future, it piqued my curiosity, so I looked up some Urban Dictionary entries for my seemingly innocuous cough medicine only to discover that it’s extremely popular in some parts of the country when mixed with Sprite and a floater of Jolly Ranchers candy. It must do something for these mixologists that it doesn’t do for me. Or maybe when you’re not half dead from coughing, it has a more pleasing effect. Although, I’m not sure what could be more pleasing than the drugged, coughless sleep this drug has given me.
And yes, Judgie Wudgies, I AM nearly nine months pregnant. I am sure that my infant is thrilled to have a break from my incessant hacking so she can sleep as well. It also keeps me off the smack.
I should stop going on about my cough syrup, lest I prove Niapaul right about the sentimentality of female writing.
Now, excuse me while I go murder the dog* that won’t stop barking at the neighbor who is attempting to repair the same old broken fence that divides our properties using the same rotted old boards which are responsible for the sagging mess in the first place. Something that he tries three times a year, but only at naptime.
*all claims of attempted animal murder are completely facetious and used for humor purposes only.
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