Day 8 of the NSF. Yesterday (Day 7) was just like the day before. Woke up with the same raging sore throat, had three Advil for breakfast, and slept nearly all day. I was still too sick to even read, but I listened to some TED Conference podcasts on my iPhone in bed for about an hour in the evening.

Today I am quite improved. Still woke up with a fever, slight sore throat, pain in the left side of my head and neck, plugged up left ear. Still coughing green junk (4 days now). Sorry if that’s TMI. But I had enough energy to actually get out of bed, take care of a couple of work tasks on the computer at my desk, go to the pharmacy (not the vache’s pharmacy), and write this.

My “viral episode” took me way back. When I was a kid the flu seemed to last forever. There would be days and days of feeling horrible followed by the days when Mom tried to “keep you still” while you recuperated. One of the good things about the flu as a kid was the brand new coloring book Mom always got me as part of her keeping-me-still strategy. Sometimes I also got books of paper dolls, stickers, activity books (I liked seek-a-words best), and those paint-with-water books when I was really little. Remember those? I loved watching all the game shows on TV. Let’s Make a Deal was my favorite. I could never understand why people were bummed if they got the donkey instead of the washing machine.

Anyway. What I want for Christmas is a holy water font for my entryway. I’ll put x parts water and x parts bleach in it and require anyone coming into my house to stick their hands into it up to the wrists and scrub while counting slowly to 30. Here are a few that are available at the Discount Catholic Store in case you need a gift idea for me:

discountfont.jpg

I like the classic Mary in blue. It reminds me of the bathtub Maries I used to see when I lived in the Midwest for a couple years. People would half bury old bathtubs vertically in their front yards and put Mary statues inside them, plant flowers around them, etc. Classic Americana. But I also like the winged guy stepping on the other winged guy’s head. My question is this: can you get cheap Catholic girls at the Discount Catholic Store? Cheap Catholic men?

The French are quite proud of their (relative to American) unsanitariness, proclaiming for anyone who will listen that it gives them superior immunity. I buy it. In the US, a few years before I left, people were already starting to talk about how the oversanitizing we do in the US is just weakening our immune systems and making germs more resistant. That’s not good. But even if the French are onto something here, it doesn’t make it any less gross to be standing at the market next to a Frenchwoman who is coughing with an uncovered mouth and unturned head over the pears she is fondling, or to be holding onto a pole in the subway next to some guy who’s picking his nose. These are not hypothetical examples.

Vincent tells me France is the only Western European country where the swine flu epidemic hasn’t peaked yet. Is this because they have such great immunity or because their doctors diagnose the swine flu as strep throat and sinus infections? We may never know.

Now, of course, I know that I can’t blame French germiness (in my perception) for my NSF. I was due for it. They say you get the flu on average every 15 years, and that’s exactly how long it’s been since I was last flattened by it. But I figured this viral episode provided as good an opportunity as any to… comment… on this phenomenon, which is an ongoing intercultural challenge (read: cause of anxiety and occasional disgust).

I have my blog to replace the coloring book this time. But coloring actually sounds really nice right now.

Off to bed.

Share|