How to be productive when you’re sick

I’m sick. My throat hurts. My nose is a faucet. And my head is squeezing in on itself. For no apparent reason. Except maybe in a vain attempt to expel my persistent cough.

And I’m never sick. Oh, sure. I’ve alluded to the one time when I had some strange freak condition that landed me in the hospital. But besides that.

I never get sick.

When other people tell me they’re sick, I raise my eyebrows like, are you really sick you poor thing, or are you just a big wimp? Because if I have a little sniffle, I work through it. I’m tough.

Then a couple weekends ago, I laid down on the couch, the sun shining in, feeling like I could sleep into oblivion because moving was not an option. I couldn’t even move to change the channel from Gossip Girl to America’s Next Top Model.

It wasn’t until a few hours later that I thought, huh, I must be sick, and reached for the phone to dial the only person who could take care of me, even from hundreds of miles away.

My mother.

“Of course you’re sick!” she answered when I described my symptoms. She demanded that I go buy a liter of 7-up to calm my nausea, some white bread, but no butter, and chicken broth. Then sleep. Lots of sleep.

“And for heaven’s sake, don’t try to work!” she squawked. Yes, mother. And for the next four days, that’s what I did. I lived on 7-up, bread, chicken broth, and slept. I don’t even drink pop.

I got better. Life went on. And now this.

Don’t the sick fairies know I have stuff to do? Really. My nose is so red and my skin is so pale, I look like Rudolph died. It’s not fun. And I’m trying to figure out how I can get some work done. Any work whatsoever. So I do a little work, and then I call my mom to check in on her, because as it turns out, even hundreds of miles away, she’s sick too.

“You haven’t been lying down? Go lie down,” she says. And I’m all like, “But Mom, how are you?” And she’s like, “For heaven’s sake, don’t try to do any work either!”

Yes, mother.