“Oh god, I’m dying”–a typical overreaction. I had hit the weights pretty hard on Monday, and by Tuesday, muscle soreness had well and truly set in. “This is entirely too much muscle retribution for the amount of weights I lifted,” I thought, and had I been smarter, I’d have given it more than that fleeting bit of notice. Yesterday evening, I went to take a hot bath to ease some of the tightness, and after the soothing heat had put me to sleep, I awoke with a sore throat. A terrible sore throat. No wonder I’d been feeling so achy; it wasn’t just from the workout, but from the onset of an illness!

Nearly immediately thereafter, the rest of the virus began to take its toll, setting in with nigh-unprecedented speed. My sinuses began to ache, my ears began to hurt, and my face began stuffing up like a glutton at a buffet. My throat began to hurt so badly I could scarely swallow, which is really all that you can think about when it’s no longer a non-painful option. I don’t get sick often, so when I do, I am a real peach to be around. Jason should have fled the second I started to complain about my throat–“Hey, I just remembered, I have my own apartment and I think I’m going to go sleep there, you can feel free to moan and tantrum all you want here, though. Go nuts!” Because he unwisely did not run like the devil was behind him, he got to put up with an onslaught of complaining, the likes of which not even Lucille Ball could hope to compare. “I’m cold but too sore to reach for the blanket. WAHHH please get it for me. Hold me. Massage my aching muscles. Comfort me. WAAAAH. This part of the videogame is too hard, beat it for me. I’m going to snore like a chainsaw because my face is all stuffed up and YOU are not going to go anywhere. I’m hungry but I also feel nauseated from the awful evil-tasting Wellness Formula pills*, fix it. WAAAAH I’m thirsty but it hurts to swallow.” And yet through all of this moaning and complaining, Jason has been nothing but sweet to me, covering me with blankets, massaging me, kissing my plague-bearing head and hands, making me breakfast, taking out the dog, and beating the hard parts of videogames.

This guy is a keeper. I might not be.

*Seriously, these Wellness Formula pills are foul, they still make me burp up a potent combination of rancid garlic, ginger, and goat’s breath all while making me feel nauseated, and as soon as the nausea passes, it’s time for another dose, so it seems like adding insult to injury, save for the fact that they are also magic. Yesterday, I was stuffy, my face and ears ached, and my throat hurt so bad I spent time in the bathroom checking it with a flashlight to see if I had strep. Today, I have no more stuffiness, no more face and ear achiness, and my throat just barely hurts. MAGIC. Nasty, but magic.