Back From the Dead

So, remind me why I bothered getting a flu shot back in November…

I have been out sick for the past 2 days. And when I say out, I mean OUT. I’ve been essentially removed from life for 48 hours. My most pressing concerns have been trying to regulate my erratic body temperature and preventing my head from exploding.

Monday evening I constructed a cocoon on my couch and left only for the most basic necessities (like putting in the next Sex & the City DVD). Tuesday night Daniel breached my self-imposed quarantine to bring me chicken noodle soup and throat lozenges (bless his little heart), but other than that, I had no contact with the outside world. None. No television (except Sex & the City re-runs), no radio, no internet, and if I happened to hear my phone ring through my germ-encrusted fog, I let it ring. Fuck it, my throat hurts, my neck hurts, my head hurts, my hair hurts…

Tuesday night as I dragged myself to bed after Daniel left, I vaguely heard and registered the low rumblings of thunderstorms outside my window before slipping into unconsciousness.

Wednesday, as my illness dragged on, I noticed glumly through one squinty eye that it was bright and sunny outside. Dammit – there’s nothing worse than being sick when it’s gorgeous outside. Eventually I motivated myself to check my phone messages (c’mon you can do it…just a few more feet to grab your phone and then you can go back to your cocoon…promise). My phone’s mailbox was filled with a handful of panicked texts and voicemails from concerned friends and family members regarding the tornadoes. Tornadoes?! What tornadoes? Surely I was not so delirious in my fevered stupor that I missed freakin’ tornadoes!

Yup. I missed ‘em alright. Or rather, they missed me. Apparently the weather channels showed severe tornado activity in west Nashville that night (where I happen to live), but fortunately my cocoon (and all of Nashville) was spared from the destructive twisters as I snored my way through my drug-induced coma.

It’s Thursday now and this plague has swept through the ranks at my office, leaving the majority of us completely drained and only slightly productive. I suspect this is what comes from working late every night and weekends for weeks on end. Either that or the flu shots they gave us were nothing but sugar water!