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I heard it and the instant I
heard it, I knew. I knew in a way that we sometimes know
things. Some people call it instinct. I couldn't explain
why I knew, I just knew. And that knowledge sent a chill up
and down my spine. I was waiting to fly on an airplane with
about 200 other people. I was watching a passenger attempt
to stuff a bag the size of a Buick LeSabre into the overhead
storage compartment. I was really enjoying the
entertainment when a woman some rows behind me, and I am
sure she was a good person who meant me no harm, sneezed. I
knew it was a woman who sneezed. The sneeze
had a feminine sound to it
and had no word attached to the end of the "achoo." Men
like to stretch the sneeze by a syllable or two. I mumbled a
faint-hearted "Bless you," and then moaned an "Oh, no." My
wife questioned me as to the reason for my moan.
"What is it? Is it time for
an oil change for your truck? Did you stop to think and
forget to start again? Have you been making mental bets
again? The last time you did that, you lost your mind."
My wife had obviously set
her fazers on stun. She is a suspicious character. She is
always suspicious of everything that I do. I ignored her
amateurish attempts at sarcasm and informed her with some
certainty that I would be catching a cold soon. This
statement raised more questions than an Enron earnings
report.
"How do you know you will be
catching a cold?" asked my wife, The Queen B. "Aren't you
feeling well?"
"I feel finer than frog's
hair," I replied. "But I will be catching a cold. Did you
hear that sneeze?"
"Yes," answered my bride.
"So?"
"Well, that sneeze had my
name on it. Trust me on this."
My wife groaned and rolled
her eyes the way she has done so often. Then she quoted
from a medical study that has shown that colds prefer
married men. She stated that bacteria like to hide in
places where there is very little movement. A couple of
days later, I had a cold. It was a doozy. My pains ached
and my aches pained. My nose ran like a Kenyan in a
marathon. It is in my genes.
Noses run in my family.
Every frog in the Township had taken up residence in my
throat. I looked in the mirror and discovered that I looked
like the photo on my driver's license. That is never a good
sign. I immediately got to work on my suffering skills. I
went dormant. Facial tissues piled up like snowdrifts in
Buffalo, New York. I drank so
much orange juice that I couldn't believe I had drank so
much. When I looked at all those empty orange juice
containers, I thought they were nothing more than pulp
fiction.
The orange juice was good to
the last drop, just like a skydiver.
I stopped eating health foods
in the belief that I needed all the preservatives I could
get. In order to make sure I
got enough sleep, I tried watching daytime television. It
put me to sleep just as I expected it would, but it caused
me to have nightmares that included mind-numbing talk shows
and intelligence-insulting commercials. I would wake up in
a cold sweat thinking that Doctor Phil was telling me that I
had a cold because I wanted to have a cold. My wife is
loving and caring, but she doesn't believe in babying. She
got out the electric cattle
prod and used it to get me to take aspirin, Vitamin C and
zinc. The Queen B took me to see a pediatrician. She knows
that a pediatrician is good with little patients and with
someone like me, a man with little patience. If I were the
kind who was prone to utter profanities, I would have been
cussing. After all, a cold and golf were the reasons cuss
words were invented. I began to realize how mildew and
uacamole must feel.
My cold was of epic
proportions. I thought that perhaps my cold might have
commercial film possibilities. The movie would even have a
sort of a car chase as my wife rushed to town to replenish
my supply of my beloved Puffs before my nose dripped again.
I would call it "Al Miserable" in honor of the classic, "Les
Miserables."
What did I do about my cold?
I did the same thing I always do when I have a cold. I gave
it to my wife.
?ŠAl Batt 2002
Hartland, MN 56042
SnoEowl @ aol.com
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To read archived stories, click on this link:
http://archives.zinester.com/9516/2004
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Blessings to you today
Bob Johnston
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