Infected

butter

(but-ter) noun

a pale yellow edible fatty substance made by churning cream and used as a spread or in cooking

lung butter

(lung but-ter) noun

a pale green inedible sticky substance hacked out of the lungs during bouts of the flu

I’ve caught a nasty cold and have been coughing up wads of juicy lung butter for the better part of a week.  It’s the kind of toxic goo that when deposited into the bathroom sink will stick fast and refuse to go down the drain no matter the water pressure used.  My only recourse is to give it a gentle nudge with a finger…

I am terrible at being sick.  I am one of the whiney ones who rapidly regresses to a younger version of myself in a desperate attempt to curry favor with an unfortunate care-giver.  I want to be coddled, cuddled and comforted.  I want cold pillows, warm blankets and hot soup.

 I am lucky to have a caring husband who will tolerate me when I am like this because being single and sick is the absolute worst.  That long, lonely walk to the drugstore for supplies when death is knocking at your door is painful.  I see them sometimes, shuffling down the aisles like queasy zombies, arms full of medicinals, pockets bulging with well-used Kleenex and a cloud of despair overhead…

I avoid them like the plague.

It’ll be a “bug,” a new Black Plague that eventually takes us out, some virulent strain of influenza that transforms so rapidly our collective brainpower cannot keep up.  Some dumb guy somewhere will stick his wiener in a Rottweiler and we’ll all be doomed.

I wonder what the world will be like?  Will we devolve into warring tribes who have to fight each other for food?  Will we intern the sick and segregate the healthy from the have-nots like those extinction event movies always show?  Will those with the most money and the biggest guns survive while the rest of us rot?

Perhaps we will rally together as a species.  Maybe our better nature will prevail and we will surprise ourselves.  We’ll band together against a common foe and come out the other side a stronger, more united, compassionate peoples…

Who am I kidding?  We assault each other over soccer games…

Here’s hoping this latest cold I’ve caught is not the one that starts the ball rolling.  If my lung butter magically mutates into an invincible “super-bug” and I accidentally cough some into your face, I apologize in advance.