WHERE THE HELL HAVE I BEEN?
I would've preferred an out-0f-body experience...

IN MY LAST POST, I mentioned that I'd come down with some symptoms, most notably a "funny feeling" in my throat, after, ironically, visiting the doctor's office. Hmmm. I thot the objective of modern medicine was supposed to make the patient BETTER. And, yep, that "funny feeling" turned into a full-blown case of the flu. I felt progressively worse as the week progressed, or should I say, "regressed". Well, the way I felt DEFINITELY regressed. And, I was trapped inside my body when the fever broke at about 4am Saturday morning. While people were probably having a good time, dancing, partying, eating at an all-nite restaurant or whatever, I was home, barely surviving, with all kinds of drastic visions imploding inside my fevered skull as I literally thought my brain was going to overheat and the ol' cranial cavity would end up performing relatively the same function as a microwave oven, CHAR-BROILING my gray matter in the process.

IT'S ALL MY FAULT, THOUGH. You see, I should have known better. But in this age of ultra-modern medicine, where it takes AT LEAST 6 MONTHS TO SEE A DOCTOR BECAUSE THEY'RE ALL OVERBOOKED, one tends to forget that, "hey, I'd better be careful when I visit the clinic, because after all, there's other sick people there as well." Only, I wasn't sick. I was just trying to keep an appointment. But someone else in there was sick! Sick as a frickin' (f-word!) DOG...and if I could WRAP MY HANDS AROUND THAT PERSON'S THROAT, WHOEVER IT WAS THAT MADE ME SICK.....wait, wait, wait, WAIT A MINUTE, HERE...it's my fault, it really is. After all, it is I who is to blame for NOT GETTING A FLU SHOT. All I know is, although I'm better now than I was, I basically haven't been out of the house in a week. And, I've found out that getting sick is not really the recommended way to achieve sudden weight loss. And I didn't eat anything for THREE DAYS. Good thing I'm fat, huh?

I'VE HEARD IT SAID that each cigarette a person smokes takes 15 minutes offa their life. Other life occurrances, such as death of a loved one, job loss, marital bliss-ripping, etc. etc. are all supposed to be "strikes" against you as you make your way thru life. In short, all the adversity piles up. Did you yell at someone today? Five minutes off your life! Did you become annoyed at some "witless Jehovah" trying to sell you a religious line at your front door, and you were squirming in your efforts to tolerate them and felt tension because of that? Zap! There goes 45 minutes! Did you drink too much at the bar and get hung over? Okay, 20 minutes there; double that if you consumed mixed drinks instead of beer. (I am being capriciously arbitrary here, ain't I?) Did you get caught in a mens' restroom during a sex-sting operation like a certain Senator that's been in the news lately? That's gotta be at least a coupla years offa the ol' life expectancy right there. If not a DECADE.

SO, HOW MUCH SHORTER IS MY LIFE now that I went to the doctor's office and got sick as a result? I bet I lost at least half-a-year offa my life this time around. My body turned into an inescapable mass of feverish flesh, and I was literally CRAWLING between the bedroom and the restroom. I won't go into excruciating detail regarding the hacking, coughing, nausea, vomiting, sweats and overall MISERY one undergoes when they have been basically WIPED OUT by the presence of the FLU. Add to that the fact that I am GETTING OLD, and it takes me longer to work myself out of adverse situations such as going to a MEDICAL CLINIC and GETTING SICK. And I kid you not, this time I was really sick, still kinda 'am', and I suffered this time around. But, again...I guess I need to get RATIONAL ABOUT THIS and get a DAMN FLU SHOT every year. I am actually SERIOUS about what I'm posting here...I have lost a week out of my LIFE that' I'll never have BACK again.

I THINK I NEED TO FIND A DOCTOR who has a PRIVATE office, where there's LESS of a CHANCE of someone who is a WALKING EPIDEMIC infecting me with their biological irregularities! Either that, or I just need to wear a MASK all the time. And I need to carry a can of Lysol with me to spray on everybody. And I need to re-think shaking hands or even letting anyone BREATHE in my general direction. Oh, and I'll have a jug of rubbing alcohol in my pocket so I can sterilize everything I come into contact with in everyday life. Before I sit on anyone else's furniture, I'll ask them to please get out the Pine-Sol and fumigate whatever they want me to sit on. Isn't there some kind of sanitizing spray that you can shoot up your nose so you don't get a cold? I'll use that stuff more than an asthmatic uses an INHALER. Okay, that's it. Now, I'm REALLY paranoid...I'm gonna go to the Army Surplus store and see if they have any GIANT PLASTIC BUBBLES I can crawl in so no one else's sleazoid phlegm-generated illnesses can crawl all over my body and basically gradually kill me off.
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Guns-a-blazin' here on this post! Both barrels! You know what? People are FATAL, aren't they? Okay, I'll stop now. I'm probably further shortening my life by even THINKING about this stuff...