Convalescing- I’m generally pretty healthy. Not mentally, of course. Total whackadoo. But physically speaking, I’m reasonably sound. One of those skinny guys who never gets sick. It’s okay, you can hate me for that.
On the rare occasion I do come down with something, maybe once every two or three, years, it’s invariably during the winter, when we’re all boxed up tight in enclosed spaces and passing around whatever germs are fashionable that season.
Until now. As I write this, I’m in the midst of my first ever summer cold.
I’ve always mocked people who get summer colds. The very term is comically paradoxical. And its natural reverso, the winter warmer, is much beloved. So whenever someone tells me they have a summer cold, I typically assume they just have allergies or that they’re a hypochondriac desperately seeking attention.
But sonofabitch! Here I am in mid-July with aches, fatigue, and the kind of sweats that are just a little too clammy for even this time of year. What to do?
I present our MtM readers with some sickly summertime leisure activities.
TherMartini: James Bond likes his shaken instead of stirred. But I’m gonna have to buck JB on this one because I simply don’t have the energy. Besides, he prefers vodka to gin, which is simply heresy. Behold.
Pour 3 oz. gin, one splash dry vermouth, and a dash of olive brine into a frosted martini glass. Remove thermometer from your mouth, check temperature to make sure you’re not dead, and use said thermometer to briskly stir contents of glass. Make sure not to use an anal thermometer.
Delirium Pranks: Illness is a great excuse to do or not do all sorts of things that you normally can’t get away with. Missing work’s an obvious one. Though when the job in question doesn’t pay money, *cough*, then there’s no rest for the weary. So I’ll find another way to make it worth my while by calling up Tall Matt, Short Matt, Other Matt, Different Matt, Matt Dillon, Matt Damon, Matt Taibbi, Matt Kemp, Matt LeBlanc, Matt Lauer, and half a dozen guys named Matt from the phone book, and screaming incoherent and absolutely appalling obscenities into the phone. And then hangup before they can respond. If they call back? Hey, I’m sick, I don’t remember a thing, you filthy !@#$er
Drugs: I don’t know if you’ve been following, but it turns out that prescription drugs may very well be eclipsing illegal drugs as the ones that are blighting America most. Time to balance the scales. You know anyone who’s got some scales?
MtM Health Insurance: Also known as our very own Lori Levine and Cookie dressed up as nurses.
Tomorrow, Cheesy Bruin dresses up like a paid staffer for MtM. That, too, is a fantasy.
