Sorry, posting is a little light lately as I’m fighting off a cold. Another travel related cold. The natural order of things is upset. Once upon a time I could count on a relatively well-structured and orderly life. Mary and I would travel. Ponder the wonders of art and culture, eat amazing foods in far off foreign lands. Try and puzzle out how to get hot water from the shower. Then after we arrived home, within a couple of days at most, though more often during the last few legs of the homeward journey, Mary would start to come down with a cold, or the flu, or some strange and exotic virus combining the worst aspects of both.
I’d immediately proclaim my undying love for Mary, put her to bed, brew a couple of pots of tea with honey, defrost some chicken soup (this occurred often enough that I made several gallons at a time and then froze it in quart size containers), and put the TV clicker in easy reach on the nightstand. Then I’d decamp to the guest bedroom where I would entrench myself behind a viral barricade of multi-vitamins, HEPA grade air filters, and hand cleanser. It used to be this would be sufficient. After a week or two I’d emerge into a post apocalyptic wasteland where Mary had finally, if not defeated her viral hitchhikers, at least reached a stalemate. Once in a great while, my attempts to evade contamination would fail and then I’d be in for a day, maybe a day and a half, of runny noses, but that would pretty much be it.
Not anymore. The last couple of years have revealed a worrying trend. First, there was an alarming rise in the number of times I contracted Mary’s colds. The came an even more alarming rise in the severity of the infection. No longer was I back on my feet after 36 hours of sleep, punctuated with Stargate SG-1 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer re-runs. No, now I was bedridden for days, plural, multiple days. I’d be so sick I didn’t even want to watch the amusing antics of the Scoobies (pat yourself on the back if you get the reference). Finally, all the worlds topsy-turvy and I am the one getting sick first, or even, horror of horrors, the only one to get sick. This is just not cricket.
So now I’m afraid it has come to this: if you‘re travelling any time in the near future, and in this case the near future encompasses the period extending from May of 2011 through August of 2035, I must insist that you confine yourself to your own domicile if you feel the slightest tickle in the back of the throat. I’m aware this will probably cause a collapse of the world economic system, but it can’t be helped. You haven’t seen me sick. Ask May, it’s decidedly not pleasant, for everyone involved, and in order to spare her and me from the fallout from a bout with viral infection, I must insist that you sick people stay the hell away from me, forever. Thank you very much.