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There will be no column today because I'm sick.
It took me until October to do it, but I finally caught the summer cold that's been flittering about the office. I never was much good at catch, and I hadn't intended on improving now.
But even if you lounge around right field with your eyes closed, a ball occasionally plops into your glove, quite by accident. Apparently, I spent too much time lounging about the office with my eyes closed because the cold bug flew through the air, and I caught it.
I had a three-day weekend with which I wasn't planning to do much of anything but lie about the house watching old wrestling videos. That's pretty much how it turned out, with the addition of numerous boxes of tissues.
Also, I am not writing a column because I am sick. I verified my illness with a thermometer. The first night of my trauma, it actually topped 100 degrees.
I'm proud of that. It's proof that I'm not making this up.
I only point this out because it has been my experience that a certain segment of our populace believes only women get sick. Men whine.
Why is it that when guys merely state their symptoms so a proper diagnosis can be made -- and we like to repeat those symptoms four or five dozen times to prevent any diagnostic errors -- women assume it is whining and we are namby-pamby wimps?
This is why, if forced to seek medical attention, we head to a male doctor. Our experience with women sympathizers who are not our mothers often sounds a lot like this:
"So you got a couple sniffles. Big deal! When I had the flu, a broken arm and ruptured spleen all at once, I still cooked all the meals, bathed all the kids, drove them to soccer, band and scouts, scrubbed the floors, never missed a day of work, and built that addition to the garage you wanted but were too busy fishing to do. So get off that couch, grab a hankie and start the car. We're going to Sandra's wedding and that's final!"
A good man has never suffered an illness so great that the good woman behind him won't cling to something more exotic while she's kicking him to recovery.
Nor has a good man ever suffered an illness so great that the good woman behind him cannot insinuate in painful detail why it was his own stupid fault, and how he would have healed sooner had he just stopped whining, and taken his medicine like she told him to.
Look, if I'd worn that coat in the rain, it would have just gotten wet. Besides, it was a warm rain.
When drug companies invent ibuprofen that tastes like chocolate, or at least is shaped like power tools, maybe I'll choke down some pills.
Right now, the thermometer says I'm sick, and that's good enough for me. So I'm lying back down on this couch with a fresh bag of Oreos, and I'm going to recite my symptoms one or two more times in case I might stumble upon a little sympathy around here, and I'll consider cleaning the garage next weekend.
And I'm not writing a column today. Because I'm sick.
— Send mock sympathy cards to Cole at burtseyeview@tribtoday.com.