Bugged

Tea and oatmeal. Yum, yum. Maybe not.

Have you ever noticed that when you get sick, there’s no restorative food in the house, especially if you feel like maybe you could eat a little sumpin’-sumpin’?

If you’ve caught a stomach bug and have trouble keeping air down, as was the case the last time I fell ill in November 2019, you have all manner of delicious items rotting in the fridge because you dassn’t even think about food or it’s back to The Big White Telephone for another call to your old pal Ralph. Or worse.

But if it’s a case of Snotlocker Surprise, like the one Herself fetched back from Maryland via flying aluminum test tube, the cupboards are practically guaranteed to be bare.

I thought I had dodged this particular bullet, but nope. Shortly after the sis-in-law flew home I was hacking in harmony with Herself, thankful that the gals had loaded up on Kleenex during a trip to Costco and sleeping — well, “not sleeping” would be more accurate — in the spare room.

The Boss is past it now, it seems, and has toddled off to work. But I’m stuck here, making “Andromeda Strain” noises, slurping cups of hot tea, and wishing I had made a pot of chicken soup instead of turkey chili, which is pretty much it for medicinal purposes around here unless you count the bottle of Herradura Silver tequila hidden away behind the breadmaker, which I do not. I don’t think there’s a lick of chicken in there.

In case you’re wondering, given the events of the past couple of weeks, yes, indeed, I did take a COVID test and it was negativo, as we say south of the border. This means exactly jack shit, of course, but I’m going with it because this bug feels familiar. It has caught me between grocery trips before.

16 thoughts on “Bugged

  1. Well, there is chicken soup in a can. Our go to brand is Progresso, but there are many others to choose from. Then Celestial peppermint tea to wash it down. Perhaps a quick masked trip to the store to get some would buy you enough time to make a proper chicken soup at home? Then wrap up warm and binge watch the Magpie Murders on PBS Masterpiece Mysteries.

    1. Don’t know about the Magpie Murders route to wellness, but any amount of chicken noodle soup is da bomb for getting back to health, and don’t forget the noodles. Also, some good music too. Get healthy, Patrick, and don’t watch or read the news for a spell.

  2. Is there a place you can dial up some hot chicken soup and accoutrements and have it delivered via UBER / Door Dash? Perhaps as Khal indicates, some sweet and sour from an area Chinese restaurant that delivers.

    Whatever you’re able to work out, Get Thee Well Soon !

  3. Hope you’re feeling much better very soon, Patrick!
    Never any good food around when you need it!
    While you are laying low check out The Cycling Podcast, specifically the “Explore” series and the “Service Course” series. The most recent “Explore” is a 13 part Tour d’Écosse (Scotland in French) by bike of Scottish league football grounds. The late co-founder of the TCP, Richard Moore d. 3/30/2022, is referenced. Lionel Birnie, a co-founder and childhood friend and pro photographer, Simon Gill undertook the tour in 2 parts. The voices of Seb Piquet (TdF radio tour voice/interviewer/official) and Rob Hatch (cycling and sports commentator) are also featured in intros and outros.

  4. Patrick a delivery from Costco with a rotisserie chicken and some organic stock will get you a non-kosher version of Jewish penicillin to fix the bug that ails you. I assume you have noodles in your pantry. some fresh bread and off to wellness you go/

    1. Still feel like Death eating a cracker, Paddy me boyo. A second Bug test is negative, so I got that going for me, which is nice. I suspect flu, or perhaps just a really wicked cold. Whichever it is, I wish it would go the hell away. My appetite is absent without leave and we’ve gone through a rainforest’s worth of tissues in the past week.

      So far, so good. ...

      Meanwhile, thanks to all yous well-wishers. May ye be in Heaven a half-hour before the Devil knows yeer dead. I have no idea how people with actual diseases get through the day. A little sparring with Snotlocker Surprise puts me on the canvas.

      1. My guess is flu considering your appetite went AWOL. I assume you’re drinking water like a thirsty camel at an oasis. Gatorade, I know, might help. All the respiratory viral shit is surging in Arizona along with a large amount of stupid.

      2. Yep, fluids, fluids, fluids. Only one cup of coffee and another of Irish tea, and then pint glasses of water. I even managed a bowl of oatmeal and some toast for breakfast.

        Flu you can fix with medicine, fluids, and rest. But stupid is forever.

    1. That little drama is getting beaucoup press from coast to coast. Makes the stuporvisors look like the ward-heeling, mouth-breathing lickspittles they are. I notice that when push came to shove the two Repugs didn’t have the stones to do jail time for their harebrained beliefs. One of my favorite bumper stickers remains “Don’t Believe Everything You Think.”

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