Sick & Dying, Again (But Good Nonetheless)

In grade school, I had perfect attendance in six of eight years. I missed one day in third grade because I spent the night throwing up; when I woke up at 11 and realized my mom kept me out of school, I was furious (nerd alert!). Then in fifth grade I got a nasty case of the chicken pox and had to take a whole week off. That time around I was more forgiving of my mom for keeping me out of school, since I was just starting to figure out that yes, girls are pretty, and yes, maybe I’d like to touch some of them under their shirts, so no, it was probably not a good idea for me to go to school covered in red bumps and smelling like rice pudding.

(The red bumps were from the chicken pox, the rice pudding scent because I loved rice pudding.)

Aside from those times, I never missed a day of school. While this was in large part because I was - for the most part - a healthy child, it’s also because my illnesses had a way of timing themselves. I got sick in summer more than anyone else I knew, but the real time that sickness reared its ugly head was during what should have been my favorite time of year: Christmas.

In keeping with 2006’s theme as "The Year of Nostalgia," I was sick over Christmas. Kind of. I actually didn’t get sick until I woke up on Christmas night (technically the 26th) at 4:38am. I’ve spent the past 2.5 days alternatively shivering and sweating, consuming nothing but Theraflu and ice cream. Merry Christmas.

But today I feel better, if not tired, as my sleeping cycle is all screwed up. And now my task is to write something (semi-)entertaining about a Christmas that was, by most accounts, pretty ordinary. Yes, I drank until 5:30 in the morning on Christmas Eve, and yes, I was privy to an inordinate amount of drunk driving (which I don’t condone, by the way), but for the most part, it was a lovely little Christmas. Sorry, but that’s how it is. Maybe I’ll do something more entertaining involving a missing puzzle piece and a Navy vet, but I can’t promise that.