Its funny when you walk around with a cold. Odd things happen. I just went to the bank, to the store, and to rent a movie, and different things happened at all three sites which both befuddle and amuse me.
Upon my arrival to the store, wherein I figured I would find a reasonable supply of my favorite microwave popcorn (A) I am a glutton when sick, get over it and B) I did not find my popcorn), I was fresh faced. At the moment, that means that I had blown my nose within the last 5 minutes. For some reason the bleary eyed man wandering around the “this food will kill you” section at 8 at night, hood up and hands in pockets, aroused the suspicion of the employees, who saw it fit to follow me around the store. This is odd, since if I saw someone like that in my store I would be more concerned with checking the nicely displayed and easily grabbed newspapers for any information on recent zombie activity.
After I purchased a rather substandard brand of popcorn, I had to go to the bank. At this point I had been off my couch for over 5 minutes for the first time since this morning, and was beginning to feel it. My unsure footing, half closed eyes and shuffling movements must have alarmed the older woman at the ATM, as she did a classic Loony-Tunes double take after glancing over her shoulder to investigate the sniffling, coughing, raspy-breathing and hooded apparition slowly sauntering across the parking lot directly at her. In her defense I would probably have been afraid if I saw the monkey from Outbreak coming right at me like some kind of virus-tipped bullet.
Just to clear thing up I’m talking about the monkey that bites people, not Rene Russo; that distinction isn’t necessarily as clear as I thought it might be.
Once I had finished my business at the magic cash box, I went to the video store. This is where the funniest thing happened. I found myself the object of rather annoyed and often exasperated looks as I attempted to get help finding a movie. Upon reflection I see that I cant hear anything due to my head being filled all the way through with snot, including my brain cavity and, I think, my eyes. This caused me to ask for the guy behind the counter to repeat himself several times in what I can only imagine was entirely to loud of a voice (not only because my ears are plugged with the same substance that destroyed my brain but is also because these were the first words that I had spoken out loud to since roughly the same time yesterday). Thus hopefully the reason for their consternation was my lack of auditory ability instead of the fact that I looked like my face was melting all the way off my head, from the inside, through my nose.
Indeed, being sick in public is one of the more humiliating things that I have had to go through, this despite past women I have dated and that short time with the bright aqua-marine hair. If your body is ever ravaged by the Flu/Cold/Ebola/what ever the hell I have that makes me feel like death warmed over, and you have the opportunity to go out in public and show it to the world, pass.
