Viral

Well, this whole write-daily-thing failed pretty fucking spectacularly, didn't it?

No blogs the last few days, as I have spent my waking time both busy as hell and convalescing from what I can only assume is one of the most terrible cases of the 24-hour stomach virus ever recorded.  Srsly.  It started as a normal enough day--  I got up, showered, prepped myself to go to work, drove the half-hour or so to clock in, sat down at my desk-- and then, quite before I knew what was happening, I was bent over a toilet and blowing chow like a college binge drinker after the big frat party.

There is nothing that will ruin your day faster than a hardcore, bona-fide evil stomach evacuation.  And this wasn't your normal "Oh, I feel a touch ill" brands of dainty bad-taste-in-the-mouth vomit either... this was full-bore projectile horking that had the blow pressure of a freaking fire hose.  I wish I could say it was over in the 24 hours one would think should be allotted to a 24-hour virus, but oh no, it doesn't completely feel like it... I still have this constant pressure in my stomach that makes it feel like every time I sit down I will either puke with the pressure and force of a jet exhaust, or belch the Anvil Chorus and literally raise the dead with the sheer volume.  It frightens and annoys me.  See, this bunch of chundering was physically painful-- it literally caused my upper body to buck, like some sort of vomit bronco.  I still have pains in my back and sides from where I apparently strained muscles in my sides while communing with spirits in the toilet drain.

Yes.  That is impressive.  Try telling your significant other that you strained a muscle blowing chow, by the way. See what sympathy you get.  My guess is none.  My Lovely Fiancee™ was more amused by my muscle strains than anything. 

And yes, I just spent three paragraphs talking about regurgitation.  There's probably some sort of allegory to my ability to write in there somewhere, but I'm choosing to take the high road and not bring it up.

So at any rate, I spent the first couple days on a more or less liquid diet and got really used to drinking Gatorade and Powerade and chicken broth, and discovered two things:

1) Lemon-lime Powerade: I served with Lemon-Lime Gatorade; I knew Lemon-Lime Gatorade; Lemon-Lime Gatorade was a friend of mine.  You are no Lemon-Lime Gatorade.  Although your cousin Orange isn't terribly bad.

2) One sure way to kill me slowly and painfully is to ensure I cannot eat solid foods. I died a hundred times thinking about how hungry I was and how much I wanted a pizza but any thoughts of pizza made my stomach do one of those flip-flop "made you think I was gonna hurl" motions. And then I had to sate myself with a cup of chicken broth... which is a little like having a taste for steak and having to make do with a slightly underdone microwave burrito.  It's not that the chicken broth is bad.  It's just not fulfilling.

The multicolored rehashes of last night's dinners and weird pressure in my stomach aside, that's probably the worst part of it... not having the ability to eat and/or drink what I want.  And that, most especially, includes caffeine.

Caffeine withdrawal is the worst feeling in the world.  Okay, second worst feeling in the world, right behind Singing Yack Songs With the Tidy-Bowl Choir at Firehose Pressure.  But it's right up there.  Imagine doing everything with a headache that blurs your vision, and being forced to speak in one-syllable words, even when there are no one-syllable words for what you need to express.  Imagine a bull elephant sitting on a barstool on top of your head, and then holding up a hundred dollar bill to get a lapdance... from a blue whale.  Imagine your brain processes losing what makes them hyperreal and instead becoming slow, sluggish little cretinous things that decide unilaterally to take a break from doing constructive work and instead gather around watching sitcoms on the couch while they spray cheeze whiz from the can directly into their mouths.  Imagine that, and you have an idea what it's like to suffer from caffeine withdrawal.

I fear for the day that the doctor tells me, "We're going to have to cut down your caffeine intake."

I fear worse for when he just stares negatively at me after I respond, "...because we've found a legal way to put me on speed, right?"

I realize that it has now become vogue for people to say that they try to stay away from caffeine, or that their lives are healthier because they no drink Caffeine-Free Diet Mountain Dew.  And they can certainly feel free to do that. (Although my personal take is that if you're taking the caffeine and sugar out of Mountain Dew, shouldn't you just drink a sixteen ounce can of non-alcoholic beer and be done with it?  No one drinks Mountain Dew for taste, anymore than people drink beer for its thirst-quenching ability or Goldschlager for the cinnamon-fresh breath it leaves them.)  Caffeine, people say, is a terrible detriment to people.  It makes them jumpy.  It makes them irritable.  It can cause arrhythmia.  It's a horrible substance.

And I'm in total agreement in some cases.  I have seen some people-- some children, especially-- that need to be drinking caffeinated beverages about as much as I need to have a bad case of the shakes and an open-blade razor.  And much like you, I immediately want to jam a syringe full of horse tranquilizers into their carotid artery when I see them doing it. There is a single important, fundamental difference between the way those people act on caffeine and the way I do: I don't annoy me.

Except maybe when I get sick.  But that sort of goes without saying.