How To Be Just A Little Bit Sick
By Karen Noble
1. Curl up in a ball and hug yourself. You feel so tired and achy.
2. Sneeze. Immediately start sniffling. Liquid, from your nose. Can’t stop.
3. Be able to function, but kind of just barely. Be able to stand but feel woozy. Be able to eat but just a little. Be able to talk but with a bit of a rasp.
4. Have things you need to do so you can’t just give in to the sickness.
5. Take Zicam and drink tons of water and juice. Run around and do what you need to do. Feel like maybe you can ignore it and you’ll get better.
6. Alternate between clearing out each nostril. Take Mucinex. Those little blue collar guys can’t all be wrong.
7. Eat an orange. Mainline Vitamin C. Eat another orange.
8. Wonder if maybe it might be better just to lie down in bed and watch “Law and Order” until you feel better.
9. Feel like you don’t feel badly enough to cancel things.
10. Feel like you can get ahead of this.
11. Feel a tickle in your throat. Drink Dayquil. Drink tea. Massage your sore neck.
12. Convince yourself it’s allergies. That’s all.
13. Pour on the hand sanitizer.
14. Realize you’re one of those people on the train that everyone is pissed at for going out in public.
15. Figure you’re probably the Outbreak monkey at this point. The epidemic is all your fault.
16. Cough and have someone give you an evil eye that you totally deserve. Feel terrible about trying to convince yourself you’re not sick and putting other people in the way of your germs.
17. Realize you’re in denial. You’re sick, dude.
18. Give in and go home, but don’t feel sick enough to languish around. If you were actually sick, you could feel okay just throwing on PJs and giving up.
19. Try to do some work. Feel okay just watching a bunch of Youtube videos because you’re sick.
20. Sneeze again. Now you’re nose is really clogged. But after a minute it goes away.
21. Fall asleep.
22. Wake up. Are you sicker or are you completely well?
IT COULD GO EITHER WAY.