Good For What You're Sick Of

No. 2 of 31 -- Thermometer series

In any promise of a long trip or new adventure, a lot of us get excited and can’t wait. I personally get sick and fear the troubles and bad times ahead. And me getting sick doesn't just happen. It starts with malaise, becomes a dark sense of foreboding, morphs into paranoia, then various physical challenges. Right now there's a weird sense of utter confusion, similar to what a completely other-abled person might feel if you put him on a diving board. It'd be hopeless...

But life isn’t what merely happens to us, the semi-pleasant passing of moments occasionally up or down. Instead, it’s a drastic curtain call, and you’re on stage, empty and embarrassed, with no clue what your lines are, what the play’s called or even when practice was. Then you see you're in a movie theater and the first three rows are pelting you with hotdog wrappers and pieces of bread. They're shouting, “Get the bum off the stage!” But I think they’re saying “bun” so I’m kicking it back into the orchestra pit. Finally, the curtain falls, knocks me out, and I wake up in the alley...

So forgive me if I go through my meds before we start. I see bottles of Sure Cure, Invigerator, Restorative, Pills, Specific, a truss-like jock strap, a squirt device, belts, and Mercurochrome aka Red Dope, a very old bottle. It could’ve been that stuff, with its mercury levels, that stunted me as a kid, physically and mentally, since we put it on every cut or gash. My mentality being affected is a problem I'm dealing with right now, because I feel terribly compelled -- it's beyond my will -- to lift a stack of thermometers to the rafters and see who salutes.

Of course I can’t foresee all the dangers and every need for the road ahead, so that’s why I'm going overboard. If it fits, pack it! Have it on hand! I don’t know what all I’m in for, but I’ve been injured a bunch of times in the past. Broken leg, arm, gash on my leg, gash on my arm, along with all the childhood diseases. My huge fear is some other guy will come against me because of the thermometer idea. That’s always my fear. Just because I thought of it independently, that doesn’t mean some mega thermometer guy hasn’t already done it, then he'll beat me up. It pays to live in fear.

Let me see how prepared I am for the diseases I might meet up with. Polio. I think they wiped that out. Plague. If it were around it'd be in the news. Dog breath, Italian breath, regular bad breath, those still run rampant. Mold, mildew, stains, mosquitoes, dizzy spells, road sickness, antiseptic wipes for motels, I'll pack the large size. I hate motels and the feeling that some completely infected guy was just using it last night. I need one of those glow-sticks that shows infection in all its horrible hideousness. Or maybe I'll sleep in the backseat of my car, which hasn't been used for its true purpose -- dating -- for years.

C’mon, get a grip on yourself! This is a blog drive, trying to get people interested in your nasty little blog, looking for new subscribers, commenters, visitors, everything short of real-life visits, which I already know are terrible. Next thing, my computer would be gone, my bags rifled, my passwords ransacked, and my dog stolen. She’s cute, her a good girl, yes she is, yes she is...

I’m gonna pop open this nausea medicine and drink it all down ... Bottoms up!