i got chills, they're multiplying...

...and I'm losing control.

Of my bodily functions.

At least it seems as though I am.

Still with me? Good. I promise this won't be super gross.

So, remember that time I wrote about how I sometimes faked being sick when I was growing up because it was fun to hang out in my house alone and listen to records and do other things? I know it's been awhile, like three days ago, so let me refresh your memory.

What? I didn't mention what some of those other things were when I talked about singing along to my records? Use your imagination.

Anyway, did you get to the part in that entry where I said I tread the straight and narrow now? That I never fake, and that I never miss a day of work (I hear you, you with your "Big deal, big shot. You only work about 20 hours a week, Miss Fancy Pants/Sensible Shoes. You got plenty of other time in the week to be sick.")?

Well, guess what? I'm sick!! Full blown (literally!), hardcore sick! I think I was dancing on the edge of sickness when I finished that post last Friday, and that when I felt my stomach turn a bit when I wrote about my son throwing up, it was really my intestinal track saying, "Buckle up, baby, because in a few hours, you're going to be just like that lady in Kansas who became one with with her toilet. Enjoy your last few hours of freedom!"

Except it was my hands that graced the commode for several hours. I mean, for the most part, OK? I promised you, this wasn't going to get super gross.

Let me just say that having long hair rocks. Showers at 4:30 a.m., when you forget you have long hair and your husband has moved his sleeping efforts eslewhere and is unable to hold your hair back do not rock.

The last 48 hours I've been spinning in and out of a fever, coughing, expelling various science experiments and not sleeping. I am not a good sick person. I moan and groan a lot. There might have been some tears earlier tonight. I hope it's over soon before there's an IV drip and talk of "it's for your own good, dear," taking place.

So, about that perfect work attendance record I mentioned last week? I believe, with little doubt, that tomorrow it will get a mark in the 'absent' column, and I will stay home, curled up on the couch armed with blankets and buckets and the television remote. And what will I be doing on my little respite, you wonder? Well, hopefully I'll not be throwing up anymore, because I'd hate to miss a moment while watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off on WGN at 8 a.m. (seriously, I'm too weak to paw through the DVD cabinet for my copy, and this way, I can doze through the copious number of commercials on network television. Thanks for the heads up on this, backpacking dad!).

Now, before I somehow spread my germs onto you through some weird blog osmosis, I'm suggesting you leave before I have to get snooty.

Snooty?

Snotty.

Snotty?

Sigh. Ferris Bueller, you're my hero.

Even when I'm not faking the sickness.