What's Hard On A Marriage

 A sore throat, a head cold, & the flu walk into a bar. Seeing them, the bartender says, “What is this? Some kind of sick joke?”

     I start with that because I have bad news.

     Let's see:      

     Sneezing… check!

     Headache… check!

     Congestion… check!

     It’s official, I’m sick.

     Man, if it's not one thing, it's ten others.

     "The difference between you being sick and me being sick," my beautiful but unsympathetic wife told me when I complained to her, "is you get to stay in bed all day."

     It's easy to be snarky when you're healthy.

     "No," I answered her, "the difference is my being sick is worse because it's happening to me."

     "There's nothing harder on a marriage than a sick husband," she said, getting in the last word.

     I went to bed, telling her we'd continue the discussion when I could finally breathe out of at least one or the other of my nostrils. In bed, I thought about how my wife never kisses me when I'm sick. As for me, I have no problem kissing her when she's contagious. She's worth catching a cold over.

     What put me in this condition was earlier this week I took my granddaughter to her dance class and another lady was there with her sick five-year-old son. He had no energy and was laying down on one of the benches. He kept coughing. And coughing. And coughing. I kept my distance, but apparently it wasn't distance enough. 

     Thanks, mother-of-the-year, for giving me the cold that's going to ruin my weekend.

     "Stay away from that kid," I warned my granddaughter, who was oblivious.

     "Why?" she wanted to know.

     "Just do what I say," I told her.

     She probably thought I was being a grump.

     I don't know what's wrong with these dance class moms. About a year ago, another mother brought her sick son to his sister's dance class. I could almost swear it was the same woman, because the boy was about the same age. And let me tell you, that poor kid was even worse. He was laying in his mother's arms not moving, but not asleep. His color had faded in a sickly way. I wanted to tell her she should take him to the ER, he looked that bad, but those kind of interactions never seem to end well on social media, so I didn't.

     Being sick used to be more tolerable when I was younger. It was all fun and games until I moved out of my parent's house and no longer had my mother taking care of me. This time around, I'm hoping to stay sick long enough to fit back into the jeans I bought last summer. I try looking at it this way, being sick is just my body's way of telling me I'm so awesome I need to slow down so my older and much less attractive brother can catch up. 

     But I can't tell you how mad I am at my immune system for letting me get sick. Why, just the other day I ordered a side salad with my fried chicken. I didn't eat the side salad, but my immune system should at least have given me credit for ordering it. Roughage is overrated. So is being regular. Unless you're constipated.

     So, anyway, I'm sick, and you know who says head colds are fun? 

     Only no one ever.

     Now that I can't breathe through my nostrils, I think about back when my nose wasn't blocked and how I took it for granted.

     Yeah, those were good times.