I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more. I’m also
sick as hell, and I don’t know what to take any more.
Six weeks ago I got me one of them spiffy flu shots; got in
early, and I was real proud of myself for having done the
responsible thing to protect my health.
I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more. I’m also sick as hell, and I don’t know what to take any more.
Six weeks ago I got me one of them spiffy flu shots; got in early, and I was real proud of myself for having done the responsible thing to protect my health.
Then last Thursday I got me one of them spiffy cases of the flu. Now, this is conceptually troublesome because the folks who know about these things claim the shot is effective against this year’s strain, so maybe I have something completely different that just causes all the same symptoms as the flu; let’s call it the phlu.
One of the hallmarks of the phlu is the rapidity of its onset. In my case, in the span of 53 minutes while sitting perfectly still in my car listening to a Led Zeppelin marathon on the radio while my wife Christmas-shopped, I went from a perfectly normal American male doofus without a care in the world innocently admiring Jimmy Page’s peerless guitar work to feeling like — you know the scene in “The Two Towers” where Gandalf leads about 5,000 horsemen down a steep mountainside to save the day at the battle of Helm’s Deep? Well, just imagine if someone was lying spread-eagled on the ground about halfway down that mountain, and each and every one of those horses, having gotten up a good head of steam, made it a point to run over him with all four hooves. That is but a pale approximation of how I felt by the time my wife conquered the checkout line. By the time we got home, I was begging to be sold for scrap.
Then came the truly miserable part, in which my wife and my daughter attempted to be helpful in choosing appropriate medications to relieve my symptoms, which were cycling every few minutes through those of malaria, pneumonia, post-operative infection and heroin withdrawal. Disneyland doesn’t have thrill rides like this phlu stuff.
So anyway, they’re going on and on about aspirin versus ibuprofen versus Tylenol, and expectorants versus cough suppressants, and various nostrums that make you sleepy versus those that don’t. And every time one of them says “This one is supposed to be good for pain” the other one says “But now they say it’s not good for your stomach; this other one is better” and then the first one says “But I read a study that says that one can have side effects” and the other one says “But the side effects only happen if you’re also taking this other thing,” and suddenly I had an epiphany.
ATTENTION: PLACES THAT SELL COLD AND PHLU STUFF TO SICK PEOPLE: Make a decision here, OK? Whatever is currently thought to be the stuff to take, just stock that thing – hide all the other stuff. Yes, I know opinions of these things change frequently, and when they do, put the new stuff on the shelves and hide the old stuff. But don’t spread out 27 alternatives for us to choose from and expect us to make a quality decision – we’re so judgment-impaired to begin with that we can’t decide if having the phlu entitles us to use a handicapped parking space. We need a space on your shelf labeled “Take these things if you have a cold” and another one that says “Take this stuff if you have the phlu” and like that, got it?
I mean, as a person who until the virus grows tired of me has a functioning IQ barely higher than that of a potato, the last thing I need is freedom of choice.
