Date: July 16, 2010
Location: Plattekill, NY
1100
Words and phrases have a very interesting life of their own when experienced in the English language. The word summer elicits visions of warmth, maybe even hot, days of enjoyment and frolicking. The word cold can transport you to a winter wonderland or a shivering pain felt as you gather around the furnace to fight the aches of winter. If you were to put cold and summer together in a description one might hope that you were describing the temperature of the beer on a picnic or the refreshing feel of air-conditioning as you enter a business establishment to escape the humidity and heat of a sweltering summer afternoon.
Sadly Connie and I are joining those two dissimilar words in a phrase to explain our health conditions. We have a summer cold. It is the kind of cold that builds enough phlegm in your chest to feel like an elephant has taken up residence and really needs to go on a diet. It is the kind of summer malady that explodes in your head and then tries to pour out of nearly every orifice in that aching, painful bowl congestion. Yes, we are suffering from a simple summer cold. It does not make us feel warm of comforted. It makes us feel like crap.
My lovely wife arose this morning for the two hundredth time, sounding like a freight train caught in the mud. When she could make a sound that was supposed to be her voice it was almost unintelligible. Did I mention that we work in registration and have to talk to customers all night long? I decided it would be nice of me to go to the store and try to find some kind of explosive decongestant that would attempt to give her back her voice. Also, if I don’t I may have to work by myself tonight.
As we sit here in sorrowful misery awaiting our appointed time to go to work this afternoon we sound like an orchestra of hacking, wheezing, snorting, old farts full of phlegm. Oh, that’s what we are. Summer colds suck.
I am sure that, if the illness gods acquiesce, we will summon up our strength and attempt to plod on to work and face the onslaught of arrogant customers who are escaping the trauma of work a day life to enjoy a week end in the woods. We will explain for the one thousandth time that, “This is a family resort destination” park and yes you have to pay the activity feel even though you are ninety-seven and the most strenuous activity you will engage in this week end is going to the bathroom. And no we can not move half the campground around so that you can have site 134 which is the site you always have and to hell with all the other people that need to be inconvenienced for you to have your own way. It is really interesting how the “Terrible Two” syndrome of I am the center of the universe seems to last in some people well past their third or forth birthday. It seems to last well past their fourth or fifth decade of being. Connie and I will muster the strength and stamina to trudge on to work because we come from a generation of people that actually have a work ethic. We believe that if we make a commitment to an employer we owe them our best effort to meet that commitment. We have an ethic of personal respect and work responsibility that seems to be sadly lacking in the genetic makeup of many in the younger generation. But that is another longer blog for another frustrating day.
Our summer cold will, at its leisure, leave our sickened bodies and infest some other sap. We will regain our normal equilibrium and speaking abilities. And maybe we will only cough a couple of times a day and not seventeen times an hour. I hope the medicine I purchased for Connie works quickly, both because I care and also because I don’t want to have to work alone. We are a team, no matter how pitiful we sound or look, nor how much we complain.
You will have to excuse me now. I need to go blow my nose, cough up a lung and moan pitifully for an hour or so. Self pity is such a strenuous endeavor.
|