Robitussen on the rocks with a twist, please

Sorry for the absence, folks, but I've been sick. Along with fifty percent of Germany. The cold and flu season is running with abandon here.

Normally I can avoid getting a cold. Haven't had one in years. I am at home a great deal of the time plus I'm a religious hand washer (as opposed to a religious foot washer - being from the South will help you get that reference). Couldn't be avoided this year. Everyone's sick and their germs were simply gunning for me.

Thursday before last I had to run down to the hospital to the Clinic of Dermatology and Venerology to have my neck-cyst-wound-thing checked. Yes, that damn thing is still not healed. It's evidently not supposed to heal yet. It's purpose is to heal as slowly as possible so I may wear a bandage on the back of my neck like a short, white Marsalas Wallace. Having seen Pulp Fiction will help you get that reference.

Normally I wouldn't have minded the long wait to see the doctor. I was reading my book (Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal - fabulous book, by the way) and was painfully unaware of the plethora of germs around me. God only knows how I could have been unaware of them, what with the snotting and sniffing and hacking and every other unpleasant cold-related noise a person can make all around me. Okay yes, I'll admit I heard it but in my I-never-get-a-cold conceit I believed that they were bouncing off me unable to penetrate my defenses like bullets off of Superman's chest.

Okay, who's the smart ass who put kryptonite in my pocket?

So come Saturday morning I was suffering from the sore throat and fever thing soon to be followed by the stuffy nose and extreme fatigue thing. And thank God I have a wonderful mother-in-law who was happy to fetch me medications from the pharmacy and would cook for me and pick up my mail and bring me stuff from the grocery store. She was a life saver. And I'm even more grateful for the fact that, while B did get the cold from me, it was very mild and he's pretty much over it all.

I'm also thanking God that it was only a cold that I caught. When picking up germs and assorted funk in a place called the Clinic of Dermatology and Venerology, you could seriously be courting some henious disaster.