Reciprocity

Mid-February in Boston is a fickle, unforgiving bitch. One day it’s 55 degrees and sunny enough to put the convertible top down, by sundown a front moves in with 729 mile-per-hour winds making the windchill measurable only in degrees Kelvin, and by morning your pipes have frozen and there’s an inch and a half of sleet on the street. It’s like the sky is screaming, “She’s my daughter and my sister!”, but instead of letting you slap sense into it, it’s slashing your nose open with a switchblade. And possibly drugging and assaulting your thirteen-year-old daughter. Similes are fun. But I digress.

Only insane people and smokers spend time outside this time of year, and after three straight months of this kind of weather, people begin to develop predictible symptoms of cabin fever: children fight and drool on each other. Teenagers grope, dry-hump and swap spit. Then they all go home and shriek either joyful Hannah Montana or recriminating My Chemical Romance lyrics in their parents’ faces, who then haul their carcasses into the office to gossip about their favorite American Idol at the common water cooler… resulting in a daisy chain of viral infection so perfect it would fill gonzo porn directors with jealous rage.

Scientists say that people are the most evolved life form, but people infect you by locking you in a conference room for two hours to discuss dental benefits; monkeys have the common decency to throw feces at you and give you an honest chance to at least duck.

I got my usual annual cold about two weeks ago, and I am useless when I am sick. And no, not because I’m a guy, and guys can’t handle being sick; I’m about as interested in your stereotypes of men as I am your fucking menstrual cycle, wanna-be 80’s female comic.

I’m useless because by body sends me conflicting signals that all lead to some form of misery: the sick part of me demands that I drink plenty of clear liquids and stay warm. The everyday part of me demands that I drink plenty of bourbon and expose myself to temperature extremes in pursuit of carcinogenic vapors that turn my chest into a firepit that all the phlegm in the world can’t put out, even though the phlegm usually tries like hell for about three weeks.

Thankfully, I had my girl to take care of me. She not only allowed, but demanded that I smoke inside until I got better (Apparently spending a weekend last winter waiting for a radiology report clarifying if I was coughing up blood because of bronchitis or cancer was as trying on her as it was me). She insisted that I take at least one day off of work to recover. And, she made me chicken soup. Well… Asian chicken soup. Which is similar to regular chicken soup, except it has ingredients you’ve never heard of, and which lead to baffling, surreal, Nigel Tufnel-style discussions:

“What’s this green stuff?”

“It’s lemongrass.”

“What’s lemongrass?”

“It’s a grass that tastes like lemon.”

“Why didn’t you just use a lemon? We’ve got a drawer full of the fuckers in the fridge.”

“…This soup has lemongrass.”

My girl has a little thing about Asian food the way I have a “little thing” about cigarettes. I have learned that, when she asks me, “Do you want a cheeseburger, or do you want (INSERT UNKNOWN WORD HERE)?”, she means: “I will be cooking (INSERT UNKNOWN WORD HERE) unless you want ‘Blue Balls’ to appear on your autopsy report.” Luckily, history’s proven that it’s only one time out of five that (INSERT UNKNOWN WORD HERE) turns out to be the Kanji word for “Boar Asshole Tripe”.

But again, I digress. The point is that my girl pretty much selflessly takes care of me when I’m sick. I am a lucky man. This week, she’s sick. At least one of us is lucky.

Don’t get me wrong, I try to be a good boyfriend when my girl’s sick, but I’m not a nurturer; I’m a problem solver. A problem solver with a drinking problem. Which is a weird internal recursion that rarely leads to warm and fuzzy results.

So while she’s able to hover over me and make me feel better, my instincts are more practical: go out and obtain medications to alleviate the symptoms. However, that instinct is often blurred by three to eleven beers, which means that my trek to obtain NyQuil, ChapStick and a humidifier filter always has an even chance to end in a thirty-pack, Cheddar Cheez Combos and a Hustler. Which, in my defense, still makes one of us feel better.

If my girl wants chicken soup from me, it means I’ll be opening a can, with all the ensuing cursing and lacerations. If she wants a glass of orange juice, odds are good that I’ve already mixed it with Stoli and turned it into pee. What can I say? I am what I am: broken.

God knows I try, and I think she knows I mean well. When I fuck up the order, I go back out and get it right. If she wants chicken soup, I will pick up the phone and order the best in town. I do the best I can… but the truth is: I don’t think she needs to be coddled the way I do when I’m sick. My girl’s tough as nails, and after eight years together, I know for a fact that she’s consoling herself… by saying to herself: “As soon as I feel better… I’m cooking up some (INSERT UNKNOWN WORD HERE).”

They say revenge is a dish best served cold.

For the love of God, tell me that (INSERT UNKNOWN WORD HERE) isn’t served cold.

[tags]Cold and Flu, flu season, illness, Asian food, dark humor, satire[/tags]