You know what is SUPER AWESOME for a new diet? Food poisoning! Yes! I highly recommend it! Because you will feel full/queasy all Thursday afternoon/evening, and then you will start barfing Thursday night, which, not to be gross but it will take care of any Doritos Indiscretion you may have recently succumbed to. And then you will eat nothing at all on Friday, and on Saturday you will be like a tiny weak kitten, barely managing a banana for breakfast! Not that kittens eat bananas, but you understand this analogy stretches only so far. Like, half a sentence to be precise.
But here is the problem: Your significant other, after doing a memorably fantastic and praiseworthy job coming home early from work on Friday unasked, and handling EVERYTHING while you doze queasily in a recliner, will feel entitled to his/her OWN day of rest, and will spend the day “sick” with an imperceptible Man Cold in the recliner, watching movies while YOU, barely recovered and still somewhat weak, run yourself ragged handling everything, while he/she (but let’s face it, I think we are mostly talking about HE) keeps calling out instructions right before you do things on your own, in a manner uncannily reminiscent of your late mother-in-law! Until you finally have to say to him, “Being sick and leaving me to handle everything? Fine. Bossing me from your recliner? NOT FINE.” And then he acts HURT, FTLOG. And meanwhile you are fading fast because you are still not completely up to par.
But do you know what? You probably lost a pound! or maybe two, if you count water weight! And as we all know from fashion magazines, there is NO MISERY that outweighs a reduction in your GD WEIGHT!! Because excess body weight is EVERYTHING THAT IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY!!!!
Also! As a general note! If a person is too sick to do the regular work of child/household maintenance during the day, he/she is too sick to suddenly start messing around on the computer at night! THIS SHOULD BE AN OBVIOUS FACT. Seven o’clock is not The Magical Hour of Recovery!
And also! If you are thinking of telling me how lucky I should feel that my husband is sick and bossing me from a recliner rather than DEAD or CHEATING, I suggest you RETHINK IT. Because I am pretty sure I can still muster up the energy to BARF DOWN YOUR SHIRT!
I think you should barf down YOUR HUSBAND’S shirt. That ought to teach him what SICK is!! :)
Perhaps all the activity you were forced into today will cause a terrible relapse and require you to lay in bed all day tomorrow. And perhaps you might need to direct your significant other to make sure he does everything you think needs to be done.
That’d sure be a shame, wouldn’t it?
I like you and your bitter. :) Which is totally justified, btw. (Please don’t barf on me.)
OH THE F***ING MAN COLD. I hear you sister. I hear you.
Hahahaha – seven o’clock is the magical hour of recovery around here too!
For the record, food poisoning is how I lost those last few pounds of pregnancy weight that just were. not. coming. off.
Love you! The GD man cold is the bain of every woman’s existence.
I hope you did barf down his shirt! My husband tried to pull this crap this week as well. I had a sinus infection, a BAD sinus infection. My lovely man stayed home from work on Wednesday while I slept. He mostly managed the house if not the kids pretty well. Then He left Wednesday afternoon which was fine, I did okay. Thursday he came home early to “help me out” at which point he sulked around doing nothing, occasionally tossing out an “I don’t feel good”.
Not sick, just needing his own day seeing as I got one.
Hysterical! My dearly beloved also subscribes to the notion that one day of assistance = two days of rest. :)
I just stumbled across your blog while googling for prune pictures. (That brought me to your 2/17/08 post. Great photo, documentation by the way!)
I enjoy your writing style and certainly had a great laugh from the above post. Thanks!!
MEN, EH? I KNOW, RIGHT?
Man Colds are such a pain in the ass.
Well, you are still really funny – even sick. I think you should have barfed on him too.
I am SORELY tempted to print off this post and “anonymously” mail this to my own significant other. Possibly with letters cut from magazines along the stop spelling out “Yes (her name), I am talking about YOU”.
And we don’t even have kids. Good thing, because earlier this week when the dog cut his foot and bled all over the house in the 5 minutes it took us to realize he was hurt, during the hour we spent cleaning & wrapping it (that was a fun 2-person job!), she was having a meltdown about how frustrating the dog was being and I was the one who was not only sick and having a bad reaction to the antibiotics I was taking, I also had a full-blown migraine on top of it and was trying not to puke the whole time. Guess which one of us cleaned up blood from various rooms of the house for three days, and which one of us didn’t so much as wipe up a single spot of blood? Hint: one of us is leaving this bitchy comment, and the other is in her jammies in the recliner watching a movie and LOUDLY crunching potato chips.
Next time I may have to barf down her shirt!
Ah, the Man Cold. In some ways it’s nice to know that my husband is not the only one susceptible to the horrible illness. My husband and I don’t fight about much, and I never pick the Man Cold battle, but boy I’d like to.
Aw, Swistle. I hope you are feeling 100% very soon.
*laughs* “man cold,” now THAT is hysterical. I’m with Manda, barf down his shirt!
You might be my hero!!
Nothing like kicking off a diet with puking. We just had vomitfest at our house. Sadly, everyone got either vomiting or diarrhea. Only one person got both, can you guess who?? And only one person had a sick child home on their sick day, and the other person got to be home by themselves while they were sick. I got screwed by vomitfest. Gatorade is the best thing for me for recovery. Hope you are better.
I hate food poisoning.
Thank you for making me once again glad I am single!
ugh, men. *rolls eyes*
Oh Swistle! I hope you feel well soon.
Also. Man Cold. 7pm Magical Recovery. Truer words may never have been spoken. I am bookmarking this post for future terse emails to DH.
Loved the post. It’s brilliant.
Also, I hope Mr. Swistle reads this because the MIL reference is just perfection.
Aw, poor thing. I do hope you feel better soon. And I also hope Karma kicks Paul’s butt sometime soon. Or maybe, instead of waiting, you could just do it.
I’m saving up my bitter for my Monday post. It involves the husband, some ants, our dryer, and him laying on the couch whining to me about how tired he is could I please take the crying teething baby elsewhere so he can nap?
Poor Swistle, I hope you are all better, because the only thing worse than food poisoning is having to take care of your children while recovering AND taking care of a pseudo-man-cold.
OH- and congrats on the weight loss. I bet it’s close to 5 pounds from the food poisoning and recovery.
And the Doritos? I ate one the other day, the first time I had a Dorito in a really long time, and I was immediately reminded why I do not eat them. Delicious. That nacho cheese is like CRACK to a food addict like me.
If it’s any consolation, you’re still far more hilarious than 99% of the population even when weak from food poisoning and Lame Spouse-itis.
I think the Man Cold will one day be the death of civilization.
So sorry to laugh at your misery but HOO BOY that was funny.
Hope you are (both) on the mend today.
Aww, man, that sucks. I love how significant others can enhance your life when it’s already pretty good, but when things are going badly they are a weight around your neck. Or maybe that’s just mine.
I hope you’re feeling better now, anyhow, and that he’s stepping up and helping around the house.
Don’t barf down his shirt b/c then you’d have to be the one to clean it up and it just isn’t worth it.
Dude, men… I hear you.
I’m just going to say that I think, as my friend Kate has reminded me, every couple has a cook and a Man Cold sufferer, regardless of gender. My good friend’s wife (they’re a lesbian couple) regularly suffers from Man Colds, most conveniently on the weekends, you see, when she is home from work. (My friend is a SAHM, her wife works full-time)
To me, it is an interesting study in how such a thing can happen. Are we all just ATTRACTED to people who are weaker than we are in the ways of sickness? Did we CREATE these creatures, by the very nature of our strength and unwillingness to succumb to sickness like the weaklings they are? Are they just lazy? HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN? HOW DO WE ALL, REGARDLESS OF GENDER, END UP PAIRED WITH MAN COLD SUFFERERS?
That sounds exactly like my house. Last time I had the stomach flu, my husband kept coming into the room where I was too sick to lift my head to quiz me on my symptoms and how it started. And also ask for my opinion on whether I thought he would get it, then experimentally coughing. He also stopped eating for two days, “just in case” so he would have less to barf up. He did get it, by the way, the day after he broke his fast with a disgusting meat/sausage lasagna.
Hope you’re feeling better!
Oh. Vomiting. SHUDDER. Having been there all too recently, I am so very sorry. Probably got it from some dang salad or vegetable, you know. No one ever gets food poisoning from french fries or Little Debbies. Heart disease, maybe, high cholesterol, sure, but food poisoning? Not a chance.
The last time my husband had a Man Cold *I* had to take time off of work to drive him to the doctor’s because he could not drive himself. He had a sinus infection. I get a sinus infection every eight weeks. I muscle through it. He took three days off from work and did not move from his recliner the entire time. I’m not sure how he emptied his bladder. I could not roll my eyes back into my head far enough.
Marry me.
You know what beats a Man Cold? (And, OH, do I know about the Man Cold.) Man Diarrhea. Please trust me on this.
Although, I will say I am far less bitter over my weekend now that I have read this post and the comments. xoxoxo
Ugh, how awful. Well, if it was food poisoning hopefully only you ate whatever it was. If its a stomach bug I hope it doesn’t spread. Thats the worst part of stomach bugs I think…..the waiting to see who else will succumb. Usually in the middle of the night requiring a sheet change, right?
You went easy on your husband….I would have started barking orders back at him. ;) ha ha
I FEEL you, sister! We were both so sick a month or so ago – we had the Exact. Same. Illness, but who still had to take care of the baby and get him to daycare? And who got to lie on the couch moaning?
Oh I did so enjoy this one, especially that middle paragraph. Well, AS LONG AS YOU LOST A POUND then it was ALL WORTH IT, now wasn’t it? Hehehe.
Bummer about the Man Cold. Reminds me of when my mom KNEW we were faking sick to stay home from school, so she had to remind us that if we stayed home, we weren’t allowed to go outside and play in the afternoon. Heh.
Really, you should just invest in some ipecac or get a nice long chopstick and go bulemic. It’s all the rage, dearest. Screw your teeth or your esophagus!
Also, when I was a kid, my mom taught us that if we were sick in the middle of the night to put our faces in our pajamas (or nightgowns that twist up your body) and puke in there. She said that it’s always easier to clean clothes and a kid than the bed, the walls, the floor, and wherever else we may have projectiled. I did do this once, puking down my matches-with-my-sister-and-my-doll nightgown, and when she came in I said, “I did it mommy!” and she told me she was so proud. Such a strong puke memory.
OH! And then there was the time we moved positions of the bunk beds and there was a crust of years-old puke under the drawer part of the bottom bunk. Shall I share puke stories forever!!??
OMG, Jonna is SO RIGHT. My husband is a chef (no, really, like, by profession) so he does most of the cooking. And I? Well I am a giant baby! Hence, for the longest time when people joked about the man cold I really didn’t know what they were talking about. Eventually I realized that must be because *I* get all the man colds in our house.
I often joke about how progressive we are, having swapped traditional gender roles. I usually joke about this while cramming my face with his delicious cooking and then whining that I am tooooo tiiiiiirrrreeedd to clean up.
I’m kidding about that last bit.
(OR AM I?)
Seriously, Swistle, I hope you feel better soon. Especially if Feeling Better involves accidentally washing husband’s favorite t-shirt with bleach, accidentally sticking his favorite book in the oven, forgetting to put gas in the car when it hits E, and Wondering Aloud why there was only enough dinner cooked for you and the children and not enough for him OOPSIES.
It is funny, now that you mention it, about how they somehow do rally around that 7pm hour, with enough strength to sit up and use the Playstation while pathetically asking for glasses of water and something to eat. Fucker.
The best thing that ever happened to me is that the last time our family had an attack of the stomach flu, my husband had taken the kids to visit his mother, so I was alone for the weekend barfing and he and the kids were with his mom who loves to baby him and them. Sure, would have preferred not to be barfing, but at least I didn’t have to be barfing and THEN attempting to deal with my husband being sick. I recommend it!
Oh this gave me a much needed laugh. Hub is usually pretty good to me when I am sick–but then he always gets sick after. In fact, when we all (except for him) got the barfing flu on Christmas, there was a period of an hour when both kids were throwing up in buckets on the couch, while I wretched my guts out in the bathroom, while the baby screamed and dry heaved and insisted that he hold her. I forgave him all his Man Colds right then and there, because that was some shit. Then of course he got it the next morning, and nobody else was feeling up to par, so we all just laid around. And then, his flu extended almost a week of just feeling generally horrible and needing to be babied. It’s the CIRCLE OF LIFE!!
“If you are thinking of telling me how lucky I should feel that my husband is sick and bossing me from a recliner rather than DEAD or CHEATING, I suggest you RETHINK IT. Because I am pretty sure I can still muster up the energy to BARF DOWN YOUR SHIRT!” – LOL!!
Actually, though, I was reading this feeling a tad bit guilty myself. On Saturday night, hubby’s food didn’t agree with him and he spent a fair amount of time … well, you know where. Sunday morning, after he told me what happened, I began to feel ill (I do have a tendency to psychologically adopt illnesses). I ended up lying on the couch all morning. By mid-afternoon, I felt fine and by evening, I was indeed on the computer enjoying my time alone.
bah ha ha ha! I lurv lurv lurv this post! Hilarious! Except…sorry u got sick! :o)
Oh, the f’ing MAN COLD! What is this, some universal law?
I bet that The Magical Hour of Recovery MOVES with CHILDREN’S BEDTIMES. Am I RIGHT?
Yes.
Yes, I am.
Men. They’re like kids – tummyache at dinner, starving for dessert. I’m glad you’re on the mend. Food poisoning is some awful stuff; yet, I marvel at his ability to ‘catch’ it from you. Men are weird.