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With so many of us around the world in some form of lockdown, quarantine, or social distancing in fear of catching and/or propagating COVID-19, I felt it timely to take a proper look at the silly side of sickness.
Sickness is different in different situations… and requires different acronyms
From time to time we all get a little carried away, and our illnesses may be ‘self-inflicted’. In this case sick often stands for:
Sucked
Into
Crazy
Kapers
Let’s face it, hangovers have to be the number one cause of ‘sick’ days in many companies.
COVID-19 sickness is SO special, even perfectly healthy people get to stay home and take time off work. Here sick stands for:
Social
Isolation
Coronavirus
Kicker
Or
Stuck
Inside with
Crazy
Kids
The feedback I’m getting from healthy people socially isolating with their partners and/or kids is rather than catching the corovavirus, they are experiencing a marked increase in the previously mentioned sickness…
What about when we do something stupid, like going out into the cold with wet hair, forgetting to take a sweater in winter, or rolling in the snow naked? In this instance, sick stands for:
Stupidly
Ignored
Common
Knowledge
There is no one to blame but ourselves here.
Then there is that special form of sickness. The one that when people talk about it, their whole face and bodies change from the sheer traumatic memory of it. You know, when you were travelling and you ate something from a street vendor? In this case sick stands for:
Suffering from
Invasive
Curry
Karma.
That illness which is SO BAD you want to commit hara kiri? When your bum is SO out of control it is committing curry kazi?
It is generally something stupid that we have done to ourselves that makes us sick, and as most of us know by now, you just can’t get away with that sort of thing anymore.
Yes, there are a range of lurgies like Cory Corona, Vinnie the Virus, Freddy Flu or Danny Diarrhea just waiting for us to slip up so they can come and show us who’s boss.
What do we do if we’re sick??
As humans, we don’t cope well AT ALL when we are sick. Really there’s only a couple of things we do.
Firstly, we go to our General Practitioner (GP). You may not know this, but in ancient times, GP actually stood for Glorified Prostitute. That’s right, you paid them copious amounts of cash hoping that you would feel better, they offered you drugs, and after getting your gear off and being touched up a little bit, you left without your dignity…
And what is it with work requiring medical certificates?? Mandated trips for some Gratuitous Probing? More evidence of corporates as pimps?? I think so! How are you supposed to drag yourself to the doctor if you’re vomiting or have diarrhea? It’s not practical unless you take a stash, including a bucket and some adult diapers.
Then you have to wait in a waiting room with all the other sick people while your immune system is down, so you can take even MORE disease back to the office with you.
The other thing we do when we’re sick is generally just feel sorry for ourselves. We curl up in bed or on the couch with our blankies, expect our loved ones to wait on us, and play our favourite sicky tunes like:
- Stevie Wonder’s, ‘I just called, to say, I’m chundering’
- Meatloaf’s, ‘Like a crap out of hell’
- Joe Jackson’s, ‘Is that really coming out of me?’
- Celine Dion’s, ‘My arse will go on and on’
- My personal favourite, Burt Bacharach’s classic, ‘Brain snot keeps falling on my bed’
Man flu – the struggle is REAL!
But some men are the WORST when they are sick. They are somehow under the illusion that they get sicker than women… My brother is an awesome example of this. He is a highly experienced engineer, has three children, and mercifully, rarely gets sick.
A few years ago they were living in Canada, when his wife and kids got sick. He was quite unsympathetic… until HE came down with the virus. Then it was a WHOLE different story. He was actually asking for his mother! Imagine how his wife felt? He actually told her it was worse for him because he was clearly far sicker than they were! I often wonder how he is still married after that…
Although this IS coming from the man who is STILL convinced he is allergic to washing dishes. His debilitating allergic reaction? The backs of his knees get itchy. I am not making this up! I even checked with him if I could reference him in relation to this for this blog post, and far from being embarrassed, he doubled down.
“I remember that, and to this day I maintain it is correct,” he texted before following it up with this caveat.
“Although [I’m] not sure if I still suffer [from] that, since living in Asia, I don’t do a lot of [my] own dishwashing.”
Funnily enough, each time he tried to use that excuse while we were growing up, I got a little allergy of my own. The backs of my fists got itchy…. And we all know the remedy for THAT, is impact with your brother’s face…
Age is a number, not an excuse
In all seriousness, most of us at some point in our lives encounter some form of serious illness that takes some time to heal, if it does at all. This is our body’s way of telling us we are doing something wrong and we need to change.
Some of us blame our ailments on age. This is one of the perks of getting older: no matter how many things are wrong with you, people don’t view you as a hypochondriac.
But I have a newsflash for you people! As Danial Auber once said, ‘Aging seems to be the only available way to live a long life.’ So start embracing it and stop blaming it for all of your troubles!
Ladies, your knees aren’t giving out because you are getting old. They are giving out because you spent years punishing them on the netball court.
Gentlemen, you’re not buying little blue pills or nasal delivery systems you saw on billboards because you are old. It is because you are incredibly gullible!
So take responsibility for your own health and stay well!
The End
Thanks for reading and/or listening. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please like and share on social media. I’m on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin and my handle is @ClaireRWriter.
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Until next time!
