Hopped Up on Claritin and Nyquil...

I'm sick.

Actually, I'm pretty sure it's allergies. I don't get them often, but apparently the pollen count in Dallas is somewhere in the neighborhood of A ZILLION, which is why I've been reduced to this decrepit, sad shell of a man you see before you.

I've been sneezing and hacking for three days straight. My nose is running like Bush from a Gay Pride parade, and my head is more stuffed than a Florida ballot box.

(Yeah, I know. But I've gone an entire week without referring to our president as a retard, so I'm just making up for lost time.)

So anyway, I'm sick.

I'm always a little sensitive about admitting that, because I come from a long line of hypochondriacs. My grandmother was the worst. I can't remember a phone conversation with her that didn't involve the phrase "Oh, Mamaw's aneurism is acting up a bit."

(My grandmother constantly referred to herself in the third person. And she apparently wasn't too clear on the whole aneurism concept. But I digress...)

After my dad's sixth (I think... I sorta lost count) divorce, he moved back in with my grandparents. He'd had a heart attack the previous year, which provided all kinds of exciting and new hypochondriacal avenues. I actually once had the following conversation with my grandmother:

Me: So, is Dad around?

Mamaw: Oh sugar, your daddy's lying down right now. He was mowing the yard this afternoon and he had another heart attack.

Me: What?

Mamaw: Oh, it's okay. He gets them all the time. He just has to lay down for a while and they'll pass.

Me: But... I mean, did you take him to the hospital?

Mamaw: Oh, those idiot doctors don't know shit, sweetheart. They'd just tell him it was indigestion and send him home.

Me: Are you sure it isn't indigestion?

Mamaw: I think your daddy's smart enough to know whether or not he's
having a heart attack!

Me: Um, okay. Can you have him call me after he... you know...
recovers?

Mamaw: Okay, sweetheart.

Me: So, how are you doing?

Mamaw: Oh, Mamaw's doing fine, sugar. But her aneurism's acting up a little...

Many of my friends are no better. I seem to be surrounded by people who don't get headaches, they get migraines. They're not hungry, they're hypoglycemic. They don't get colds, they get the flu. They don't have dry skin, they have leprosy.

(I have one friend who gets honest-to-god migraines, and they're debilitating. When she gets one, all she can do is lie in a dark, quiet room with a wet rag on her face until it finally passes. I can only imagine how annoyed she gets when somebody else in our group rubs their head melodramatically and says, "Can you turn the TV down a little bit? I'm getting a migraine." But again, I digress...)

So that's it. I'm sick. Or suffering from allergies, if you want to be a stickler for details. Either way, I'm sure it's hardly a blip on the illness radar for my migraine-suffering, hypoclycemic, flu-ridden leprous friends.

So if anyone asks, I'll probably just tell them it's Anthrax.