So the past week and a bit has seen my youngest daughter sent home from school with conspicuous complaints of dizziness, nausea and a full scale body rash; my wife sent home from work with complaints of dizziness, nausea and severe headache; and the teenager kept off school with complaints of nausea, jelly legs and severe headache.
God, I’m feeling insanely healthy right now.
Must be the snake oil.
Either that or it’s the fact that, while my wife travels via public transport looking at the sweaty oxter of the collective germ riddled scum sucker, to arrive at work where she has then to teach the same scummy beings, and the kids spend their entire day in close confines with a veritable menagerie of disease and pestilence that is their class mates; I travel by bike to a factory where germs dare not show their face, such are the evils that lie within.
All of this of course makes me a complete snob and totally smug about not being unwell. God forbid that it should happen because when I get sick it’s like I’ve been harpooned with a spear dabbed with Yellow Fever, Scarlet Fever, Dengue Fever, Cholera, Diptheria and Tourettes all rolled into one. At least that’s what I’m told.
In all seriousness, their collective ailments have of course, brought the inevitable third degree from the medical professionals and their sycophantic impostors– "if you have flu like symptoms you can’t come back to work"; "if you have any symptoms that involve sickness or sore throat you must phone NHS24"; "if you are unwell you must seek medical guidance before blah blah blah".
Everybody has had, or knows someone who has had that; everyone knows what it is that ails you; every single one of them knows exactly what the remedy is; and every person nowadays afflicted has to have some sort of classifiable disease or condition.
Parents no longer see there kids as having been afflicted by sitting too close to snotty Jimmy at school, the kid has to have something-itis or whatsit flu. They can’t just have a dose of the shits. No, they have to have a severe allergic reaction – probably down to eating a couple of kilos of Haribo jelly mix or a trough full of Golden Wonder Cheesy Wotsits.
The amount of kids who have allergies, or rather "intolerances", is alarming to say the least. Lactose intolerant. Gluten intolerant. Nut intolerance.
The parents are doing this. Pushing their insecurities and stresses upon their darling little offspring.
Their illness is probably more down to the stress of worrying about being intolerant to so many things and wondering where their next meal is going to come from.
I guess it’s all for the common good and maybe the evil pig god is visiting some divine retribution upon me for my scathing comments about swine flu, but why can’t people just get ill these days.
I’m no better than anyone else.
In fact, if my dear lady is to be believed, I am the worst kind of patient and the living embodiment of all that has led to the myth of manflu.
I have to disagree because it takes something pretty severe to keep me out of the office.
Last time was when I met with a self-inflicted bout of food poisoning at the hands of some three-day-old turkey broth.
To be fair to myself, on that occasion, I spent a whole night expelling the foulest smelling liquid I have ever come across, simultaneously from both ends.
It felt like someone had, at the same time, stuck one hand down my throat and the other up my arse, and was trying to turn me inside out from both ends.
Didn’t Roxy Music have a song about that?
Fortunately for the rest of the family, and me, this time, the nausea hasn’t blossomed into a full blown dose of the boak.
I say this because I can t deal with vomit.
I remember when the kids were babies and one of them chucked up a load of semi-digested milk in our upstairs lobby.
No great shakes, until I had to pick what couldn’t be wiped up from between the floorboards with a cocktail stick. Put me off toothpicks for a while I can tell you.
No, I simply can’t deal with puke.
I mean, I can deal with my own if needs must but, when it comes to dealing with someone else’s vomit, I’m a total f4cking loser.
My niece, who is studying medicine and as such, has to do spells in various hospitals, claims that you get used to it to the point where it’s just like making beds or sweeping the floor.
I’ll keep an open mind on that one, as I don’t think any amount of conditioning could get me used to that.
When I really think about it, even my own puke makes me sick, it’s just that, well, I’m already being sick so I can’t really be sure if it’s the fact that I’m sick anyway or if it’s my own sick that’s making me feel sick again in a sort of self perpetuating way, if you know what I mean.
No, thought not.
Any way, all this talk of sickness reminds me of a couple of months back, when a picture of myself and some old friends appeared in the local paper, I was trying to fit together all the names and faces.
It was 1979 for f4ck sake.
I could barely recognise myself let alone anyone else but three of the people in the picture are still among my closest friends. Two of them married each other and the other married another of my closest friends.
Having all been at school together and having hung out together for years, there was the inevitable "who the f4ck’s that standing at the back third from the right" or "who’s the geek in shorts with the haircut like a Gerry helmet?" but together, we managed to make all the pieces fit, ok largely, it was down to the one with the best memory, which wasn’t me, but we got there in the end.
I still remember the occasion although I can’t remember the picture being taken. Some people who should be there are absent, my girlfriend at the time for one, but I do seem to be standing worryingly close to my ex.
This brings me back to puke and one of the reasons she became my ex.
When you’re sixteen or seventeen, cleaning up your girlfriends puke isn’t really on the agenda especially after she’s hosed up a whole bottle of Martini.
Even now the smell of it still reminds me of that night.
I’ve never been great with boats either, well big boats to be precise and, to be even more precise, big boats full of puking passengers.
It’s a popular misconception in our house that I get sea sick. Not so. I get sick at the sight of other people howking their guts up.
One time, on holiday in Kos, we took a boat trip to the neighbouring volcanic island of Nysros. Beautiful morning, wind picking up a bit, waves starting to show little white bits on top. By the time we got out of the harbour the waves were ten feet high and the wind was force eight. Anyway, suffice to say everyone but the crew and about four others were giving it the big Technicolor yawn. Trouble was that, unlike the posh airlines, who dish out waxed paper bags, poor old Georghiou could only muster a roll of Snappies. How I managed to keep the contents of my stomach at a level with my epiglottis, with all those plastic bags of breakfast soup, the wretching sounds and the boat bobbing up down like a hoor’s ersehole, is beyond me.
Still, I have never been seasick – pretty dammed close on a number of occasions but never quite got my membership of diced carrots and tomato skins display team.
On which note, some sea shanties for ya...
Steve Earle & the Dukes – Copperhead Road Alternate Version
http://www.sendspace.com/file/cieba8
British Sea Power – Glasgow ABC1
http://www.sendspace.com/file/9airuo
Echo & The Bunnymen - Glastonbury
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xbeaoj
Richmond Fontaine – Luminaire
http://www.sendspace.com/file/r7ssx3
Teenage Fan Club – Glasgow Academy 2005
http://www.sendspace.com/file/kvow8c
Prefab Sprout – Town & Country Club
http://www.sendspace.com/file/e1mw3k
Elvis Costello – Live in Falkirk
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pu6czc
Pearl Jam – O2 Arena
http://www.sendspace.com/file/zhl6wx
Simple Minds – Aberdeen Capitol
http://www.sendspace.com/file/5jrmlk
Mike Peters – In Session
http://www.sendspace.com/file/bporn8
Solas – Trumansburg 2001
http://www.sendspace.com/file/dggxlt
Adam Duritz – Shim Sham 2001
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ali75f
Goodbye Mr Mackenzie – River Sessions
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pefm9m
Pearl Jam & Neil Young – Bridge School Benefit 2006
http://www.sendspace.com/file/8c7285
The Cure - Unplugged
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ywbc4i
Trashcan Sinatras – On A B Road
http://www.sendspace.com/file/mzbct4
http://www.sendspace.com/file/n0b8ok
The Burns Unit – Glasgow ABC
http://www.sendspace.com/file/shy7ij
Dick Gaughan & Brian McNeill – Live in Germany
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4b5cun
APB – Something To Believe In
http://www.sendspace.com/file/akr4rj
Enjoy
Till next time…
Hooli
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