Thursday, January 12, 2012

That's right, I'm Abe Froman, The Sausage King of Chicago

Do you remember when you would celebrate a sick day home from school? 

I know I did. I loved it when I was sick as a kid.

The main reason being that my immune system in my young body would kick the disease out of my system by noon, so the rest of the day would be play, play, play.

Be it video games, watching television, or just getting into my brothers’ personal items to see what kind of stuff I could find to blackmail them with later, there was always something to do to keep me entertained.

Plus, back then, we all wanted to be like Ferris Bueller and have an elaborate scheme in place for skipping off to a baseball game in the middle of the school week.

Speaking of Ferris, how many of you tried the clammy-hand  trick that Ferris gave us?

You know the one where you fake a stomach cramp, and while bent over, you lick your palms.

Heck, I tried it and it worked a few times. Then my mom saw the movie...and well, let’s just say it didn’t work after that.

Fast forward a few years and I feel more like Cameron Frye now than I do like Ferris Bueller.

Just this past week I got a stomach virus from someone in my family. Try as I might I couldn’t work the full day, so I went home early.

As I got home I felt more like singing “When Cameron was in Egypt's land... let my Cameron go!” then finding some way to sneak off to do something to celebrate the extra time away from my responsibilities.

That is the trouble with growing older, you start to put things into a new perspective especially when your immune system isn’t as awesome as it once was.

You would rather cuddle up under a warm blanket and nap then break out the computer games for an all-day gamerama!

Plus, I missed out on hanging out with my kids and wife. Because I didn’t want to get them sick with what I had, they had to be kept at arms length so they would stay healthy.

It would break my heart when one of the boys would try to crawl up in bed with me or sit with me in the recliner and I had to tell them no.

So the moral of this column is that I don’t like to get sick anymore. Having to miss time with my wife and kids just isn’t worth it.

Also, I missed my geek night out with the guys and that is just unexceptable!

I know I don’t have any control on whether I will get hit with a flu bug or some kind of stomach virus, so it is not like I can will myself to be healthy for the rest of my life.

What I can do is try to eat better, get plenty of rest, and try to avoid every sick person in a two-county radius.

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