snot bag

I'm sick. I don't know why I'm in the office. I guess there is this part of me that wants to save my sick day for a day when I'm either deathly ill or not sick at all. I guess that puts your mind at ease: I'm not deathly ill. I just have a sore throat and stuffy head and my body aches a lot. blah blah blah.

I thought I was just feeling groggy because I cut out sugar and caffeine with that whole new diet thing. And maybe if I wasn't on this stupid diet I would have noticed that I was getting sick before it happened. But, it's happened. It's official.

Last night I was whining to anyone who would listen who was poor Jason and my father in Philadelphia. I think I convinced my father that I was on my deathbed with all of my whining. He called his friend who was a doctor at Hopkins to get a referral for me. Not that I need to go to a doctor today, but that I probably should have a doctor in MD, what if I got strep throat or something? I didn't think of the strep thing on my own, but once my father said that I freaked out a little.

when I was a little girl I used to get strep throat all the time. Just about every time I was sick I'd get strep too. I also got those sores around my mouth. "Herpes" the doctor would say. And I'd say "ewww," knowing that there was something gross about herpes, but I didn't know what. I'm sure I didn't know about genital herpes then. yik. Oh and I'd also get a lot of ear infections. Do you remember those bitches? That's the worst.

when I had a stuffy nose when I was a little girl and I got to stay home from school, my mother would cover the couch in bed sheets and let me stay there by the television. She would fetch me popsicles and set up a table with all different juices and sweet hot tea for me to choose from. Ah, there would also be toast. Delicious, cinnamon toast, where she couldn't wait for the butter to soften so it smushed the crispy bread and sometimes punctured right through it. I still like it like that, by the way.

The best part about being sick when I was little is that my mom made this thing called a "snot bag." it isn't the most clever name, but it was important during those years where I thought that "snot" was close to a four-letter word. (I mean, I know it is actually a four-letter word, but you know what I mean. Don't be difficult.) This snot bag would just be a brown paper bag from the grocery store to throw my used tissues in, but to make it stay open and stand up, she'd just roll down the top of the bag and place it beside me like my own personal waste paper basket. I don't know why we used snot bags when we had waste paper baskets that we could just as easily put a bag in, but that wasn't the point. It was a little bit of extra personal effort and some sort of ritual to being sick. And all of that makes you feel a little better too.


It's hard to do those things for yourself, don't you think?