Ugh.

Usually in a conversation amongst women, we will invariably comment on what babies men are when they're ill.  Big. Whiny. Babies.  Just yesterday, waiting to check out at the grocery store, a woman mentioned that very thing to the cashier about her husband, which swept from them, to me, to the three women in line behind me.  No offense guys, but this is a pretty universally accepted fact.

However.

I have discovered there is someone worse.  That would be the person who is never sick, can't even imagine being sick...and yet, with shocking speed finds herself collapsing in a heap of snot and misery.

And yeah.  That would be me.

Yesterday I'd spent the morning changing my bedding to the Winter comforter and duvet, flannel sheets, etc.  Moved the house plants from their Summer places to different windows to catch more light in the coming dark days.  Couple loads of laundry, walked the dogs, went grocery shopping.  Basically, just a normal, busy Monday.

After lunch I sit down at the laptop to write.  I sneeze.  Once, twice, thrice.  Whew!  I get up to blow my nose, and sneeze about 15 times in a row before I can even get to the tissues.  And these weren't gentle, kittenish little ker-choos.  Oh no.  They were violent, wrenching sneezes that left me dizzy and breathless.  WTF??  I had the furnace serviced a few weeks ago, I have all new filters, it can't be dust in the air.  Maybe I'm having a sudden allergy attack?  Blow, blow and blow some more.  My nose is clogged, I suddenly don't feel...quite...right.

Within an hour or so, I realize I have somehow caught a cold.  Me, who is never sick, a person who obsessively washes her hands, and avoids large crowds at all costs.  I am blaming this whole fiasco on those blasted shots I got in September.  My perfectly functioning and exemplary immune system has now been compromised by shooting foreign matter into my body.  I have been invaded by aliens.

By early evening I have lost all sense of taste, my nose is raw from constant blowing and is dripping like a broken faucet.  Of course--because I am never sick--I have no cold remedies in the house and at this point don't feel competent enough to make it down the mountain and back in one piece. 

Misery and whingeing ensues. 

There isn't a man out there who could have matched me for Big Baby status last night.

Two hot whiskies with honey later, I stagger to bed, half-drunk, unable to breathe, and whimpering in self-pity--though I did somehow manage to sleep like the dead.  (Thank you, clever Scottish people for inventing whiskey).

Today I'm in even worse shape, but after taking the boys to the park, I went to the drugstore and bought enough crap to stave off anything except nuclear holocaust...and if I drink enough NyQuil, I probably won't notice the world has ended.

So, I'm going now, to lay shivering on the couch under my blanket whilst throwing wads of Kleenex toward the waste basket.  And yes, I'll be feeling sorry for myself because that's the only thing left to do until the alien invaders move on to destroy another planet...