I’m lucky enough (or unlucky, depending on your viewpoint) to only get really sick about twice per year. Usually, I’m fairly good at telling the bad ones, from the just annoying ones. Illnesses, that is. This time? I was not so good at it. In fact, I got a big, fat F for FAILURE.

It all started about ten days ago. The allergies were a-flaring. Something was just…well, off. A day or two into this, weird and not-quite-right feeling, I noticed something else. But, I dismissed it. Must be the allergies, I said to myself. After all, just about every morning, my normally champagne colored car greets me dressed in a  bright, fluorescent-green velour outfit suitable for a flamboyant pimp. And I’ve even washed my car more than usual.

Last Friday was D-day. Short for Detonation. Because, without exaggeration, I’m pretty certain that’s when the Bug from Hell started to wreak sly havoc in my system. This thing is no joke. It just snuck up on me like a stealthy cat on the prowl for its tasty morsel of prey. It’s like a biological-warfare-grade bug!  Apparently, it has an incubation period of about a week, in which you feel like it’s just allergies. You dismiss it as a mere annoyance. Nothing really worth the time or effort for significant attention or an extra pill of vitamin C. Except. You’re so very, sadly wrong.

Then…the pink eye popped up. Ah ha hah! Or so I THOUGHT it was pink eye! Maybe it’s just that my eyes are sore and itchy from that little bit of extra rubbing?! But just in case, what the heck. I went ahead and bought the over-the-counter drops for Conjunctivitis. About another day went by. And, dang it! Those drops aren’t helping my eye get back to its normal, pearly-white color. Man! I can’t remember the last time my allergies were this bad! That’s me still so sadly in denial.

A little more time went by. A slight tickle in my throat and a little extra moisture in my lungs tried uselessly to warn me. Suddenly….KAPOW!#*@! That’s when the can of whoop-ass a la chills hit me like a ton of bricks. I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that I’d taken a major beat-down from the neighborhood gang – initiation-style. My joints were incredibly achy, like I wanted to rip my wrists and ankles off. Because only doing my fingers and toes just wouldn’t be enough! To top that off with a nice little bow, my head felt like the equivalent of a cantaloupe going through a funnel. A small funnel. 

The following day (after many-a-prayer and several delusional negotiations with God about what I would and wouldn’t ever do again)  I was thoroughly sore around my shoulders, neck, lats, and just about every muscle I never knew I had. Kinda like I over-trained on the bench press for the heavy-weight category, only I had about as much muscle strength as Sponge Bob. When that was over (and it took some of the longest 48 hours of my life) I was left with a nice, deep, gurgling cough and a sinus section full of bogies good enough to make glue. The all-purpose -strength kind.

Were I a more evil person, I may have tried to qualify for a government contract of the biological persuasion. Or in the very least patent this stuff and design catchy labels, geared towards a revenge-seeking demographic. Alas, I am not very evil at all and thus, write this as fair warning: Protect yourself. Dastardly, Evil Bug is out there!