|
Digital Slob
Curt Brandao
|
Slobs are like Disneyland for flu bugs
CONSIDERING how many times Digital Slobs have faked illnesses to shirk responsibilities (work, dinner parties, Senate Judiciary Committee hearings) it's hardly surprising that we're caught unprepared when the real thing knocks us on our backs.
After all, if life is a stage, then an illness should be little more than handy plot device -- like an alien or an evil twin -- an entertaining abstraction.
But, sadly, no. Infections with names like "pneumococcal" and "streptococcus," are real. The words themselves look like poisonous alliterative centipedes winding around whatever paragraph they're in.
And for all such parasitic invaders, Slobs are the high-yield low-hanging fruit. I have state-of-the-art anti-viral software on my computer, but my most potent household remedy against a real bug is a box of low-carb Hot Pockets I bought by mistake.
I know this because I have the flu now -- as I write, my temperature is 99.8 degrees. Not bad, really, but if it goes much past 100, delusions set in and my pal Eddie the Orange Rabbit takes the helm. He's an OK writer, though some of his squirrel material borders on racist, in my opinion.
Nevertheless, when Slobs get sick, it's karmic payback.
As children, my brother Chris and I went to the same elementary school (he was four grades ahead of me). Each morning we'd pile into the car, Chris taking shotgun -- as is his birthright -- then Mom would close the passenger-side door and walk around to the driver's side.
At least 50 times during this three-year routine, Chris would use our few moments of privacy to swing around and bark, "Fake being sick! I don't feel like going to school today!" Before I could debate logistics, Mom was backing us out of the driveway.
Instant white-hot panic.
How could I suddenly be sick? As often as not, I had just run into the car laughing. How could he do this to me?
Sure, I was the better faker -- but that was because I thought ahead. If I wanted to skip, I started coughing at 8 p.m. the night before. You've got to do your homework if you want to miss school because you didn't do your homework -- it's Truancy 101.
Still, I never considered ignoring his order. I was a grunt and he was a general in a war, a war against school. And everybody knows you don't question your commander in times of war.
That said, my method acting wasn't ready for its closeup until we hit the school lot. Yet after only 4.2 miles, I was deathly ill, and tapped into performance anxiety itself to get the tears to roll.
"I'm sick," was all that was on the page, but I made it come alive.
"Well, why didn't you tell me back at home?" Mom said.
Good point. But if she'd known the whole production schedule, I think she would've been impressed with my turnaround time.
"Well, I'M not going if HE'S not going," Chris would say.
I never knew how he got away with that. But turns out, our near-school, after-school baby-sitter charged the same for one or both of us, so Mom could save money in the a.m. by dumping us both back at grandma's for free.
Since those 50 falsehoods, I've been truly sick exactly 37 times -- that means I've got about 13 more bugs coming.
Karma couldn't care less if I was just following orders.