SICK AGAIN

I am sick, sick, sick again.

It's horrible! I'm spewing from both ends. All day I sat in bed convalescing or on the bathroom floor next to the porcelain portal. Tonight, however, I went to see my good buddy Chris play and sing folk music & pop standards at a local java joint (but that isn't what made me sick!). He was great, in fact, but I felt like death's bitch the whole time. I tried to be a trooper and smile and be pleasant, but I am absolutely the worst person on Earth about hiding my discomfort and misery. Afterwards, I came home and barfed like a drunken landlubber at sea. The old buttisimo made it's presence known, too, in a most dramatic fashion ... if I may be so graphic.

Later on I decided to take a warm bath and, as I lay there sleeplessly at 1:30 A.M., the doorbell rang. This freaked me out a little. A lot of horror movies start this way. I managed to get up, towell off, get dressed, and run to the door, just in time to see a van driving away. I have no idea who it was.

The only thing I ate all day was a baked potato, green tea, and some crackers. But all of these resurfaced amongst the violent spewing.

I don't know what I've got, but it is most unpleasant. It may have been the chicken sandwich I got Friday at KFC, or maybe it has something to do with the ant killer I sprayed all around the kitchen's exterior and much of the garage. If it continues until tomorrow, and I am unable to get any sustenance, I will have to call in sick at work and go to the doctor.

I hope it's nothing serious. I hope it's just the bad chicken or a stomach flu. When I was a little boy of ten or eleven, a little girl named Muffy who lived next door to me my whole life up to that point, developed a very similar barfy ailment which her parents thought was just a virus. So they waited for it to pass. They waited too long, though, because it turned out to be hepatitus, and she died.

I doubt I have anything so serious, but if it keeps up another day, and I am unable to eat, I will begin to wonder. I don't want to make the same mistake. It's a deep-seated fear brought on by a childhood trauma.

I wondered today, as I lay in bed feeling sick and mopey (and this is corny) what I
would think and say if I was actually on my death bed. Who would I call for? Well, as silly as it sounds, my first reaction was that I would summon Rerun. What would be my greatest regret? Easy: never having found true love. Is there anything I would ask of anyone? Hmmm. I would ask one of my male friends to go to my house and destroy any pornography I may have laying around. Actually, I don't own any porn ... but I think it would be a funny post-mortem prank to make somebody search for it.

That made me laugh. And laughing makes me feel much better.