Double Flee A

If my life is what I think it is, an epic saga of stultifyingly mediocre proportions, then it is worthwhile to mention that I have given my girlfriend my cold. And a rough time it shall be for her. Sorry about that, if you're reading. It's going to be awful that you can barely breathe, your nose will be clogged, you will toss and turn, sleep not a wink, and spit up things we outside the medical field have no means of describing outside horrific metaphors, but the worst will be the pain. Your body will ache, and before it is over, you will beg for death. It will remind you of why we have language. My point, illustrated in an imagined dialogue, taking place between two women a hundred years ago. (The reason it's a hundred years ago is that back then births weren't drugged, painless procedures scheduled in day planners.)

So you've got a little one, I see.

Yes, two months.

I would've guessed. Got three of my own. This your first?

Yes.

Hurt like hell, didn't it?

You ain't kidding! Holy sh....

and so on.

That's what we have language for, to relate to one another. Language was co-opted by marketing departments and media outlets, so everything sounds the same now unless it is spoken or written by a human being who just wants to relate to another one.

And I can relate to you, Joyce. My battle with the underestimated common cold gave me an appreciation for what the native americans must have felt as they died; the ones who probably called our common cold "the plague" as it killed them off in mind-boggling numbers.

posted by dale @ 5:18 PM