Not Dead Yet

So these past few days I was essentially under house arrest. I was in my place about 23 hours a day from Sunday until Wednesday, getting one hour of "outside time" each day for necessary errands (grocery shopping, dropping off/picking up laundry, buying more Theraflu, letting the wind blow over my only partially-clothed body because there was a nasty urine smell coming out of my pores, etc). It really, really fucking sucked.

But I am at work today – and not just because my employer probably would have fired me if I were to take another sick day (called out Thursday and Friday of last week). I feel better but I’m still not 100%. Still.

It was Saturday night when I started to really assess the situation. As recently as a year ago, I was one of the world’s leading hypochondriacs (before I realized that it required so much work). Therefore, I still have the requisite medical knowledge to properly diagnose myself.

When my sickness started, I thought it was a head cold. I was stuffed up, couldn’t sleep, felt exhausted. But the head cold and stuffiness soon went away and was replaced by a fever and chills, an intense lethargy, and swollen glands. Though these three conditions have decreased over the past few days, they are still present.

Then I remembered when one of my first girlfriends – before she was my girlfriend – got mono in junior high. She was tired all the time, had a fever, and had these giant swollen glands. We all treated her like she had rabies because we thought mono was so scandalous. But the fever, tiredness, and swollen glands…Hmmm…

And then I thought about how much making out I’ve been doing lately. My escapades with women over the past few months can only be described as "epic." My partner in crime, my buddy Mike, and I have been so impressed with ourselves that we can only say "We’re back" when discussing our Lotharian behaviors. Of course, I'm making all this up because well...I'm a loser.

And then I put it all together: I have the symptoms of mono. I have been making out a lot lately. Therefore, I more than likely have recently contracted mono.

So, sweet. Apparently, you just have to take it easy, suck on some lozenges, and drink a lot of fluids, so that’s what I plan on doing for the next few days. I guess it’s just something that you have for a few days that eventually goes away. Like I said, I feel like I’m getting better, so hopefully this is on its way out.

One last thing: I haven’t mentioned any of this to my date for this weekend, so if we could kinda keep this between us, that would be most appreciated. I don’t think she’d be too happy to learn she has to hang out with a guy with some lame, pseudo-STD. Jesus. If I were a real man, I would have gotten herpes or HPV or at least chlamydia, but mono? Really? What am I, 17? I have to admit, I’m kinda disappointed in myself – and not in the way that I should be.