Forgive me if I seem a little grouchy today. I haven’t had much sleep in the past few days. My husband has the flu, and y’all know that when a man gets sick, the WHOLE WORLD STOPS.
Let’s face it: When it comes to colds and flu, most men are less Dinty Moore and more Pee Wee Herman. I don’t care how big and strong and manly he is on the outside, when a man gets the flu, he’s about as tough as community college. (Oh, settle down. I went there. So nah-nah-nah-nah, oh, I forget the rest.)
Keep in mind this is the very same flu that I had a couple of weeks ago. Symptoms included nausea, fever, chills, and Linda Tripp hair.
When it hit, I explained to our toddler that Mommy was under the weather and needed to take things easy, which she misunderstood to mean that she should paint the cat’s ears with nail polish and eat an entire tube of ChapStick.
The point is, like so many women faced with this dilemma, I kept on going because I had to. It is what we do.
My husband reacted differently.
“You sure are lucky you didn’t catch this,” he had the nerve to say as he dumped his coat, tie, and briefcase on the floor and trudged upstairs to bed.
Right. My body temperature always hovers around 104. And Don King was a Breck girl.
Being an empathetic person (sort of), I decided to take the high road and immediately fetched ginger ale, the TV clicker, Tylenol, and Kleenex.
“Do we have anything softer than these? They hurt my nose,” he moaned.
“Shut up, wussy boy,” I hissed under my breath, then felt instantly and sincerely sorry. This flu, after all, leaves you feeling like you’ve been trampled by a troupe of rabid Riverdancers.
Then, because he seemed genuinely miserable, I did the dumbest thing I’ve done since watching The Joan and Melissa Rivers Story and said, “Hon, let me give you a bell to ring in case you need anything.”
Ringy-ring-ring.
“Can you bring me my baseball magazines?” (Sure, you mean the ones that are precisely three feet away from your left elbow?)
Ringy-ring-ring.
“If you call Mama, I bet she’ll tell you how she makes that great chicken soup. This stuff tastes canned.” (Of course it’s canned, doesn’t he know I watch Days of Our Lives every day at this time? Like I’m going to debone a frikkin’ chicken while Stefano’s switching babies? Puleez.)
Ringy-ring-ring.
“Can you keep the baby quiet? I really have to get some rest. (Sure, Love Muffin. Where IS that toy corn popper gizmo?)
Up and down the stairs I went. By the end of the week, he was feeling better and I’d lost twelve pounds.
After minutes of intense study, I’ve decided men can’t help whining while sick. It’s a little like asking Bill Clinton to resist a roomful of women wearing bad home perms and toting sacks of Big Macs.
We shouldn’t be surprised. Men look at illness as a chance to return to the days when their mamas crushed Bayer aspirin with the back of a spoon and fed it to them in a jelly sandwich.
How we deal with illness is just one of the ways men and women are different.
Men, for instance, will never understand Basic Women’s Economics. I cannot tell you how often I have tried to explain to my husband how it is possible to actually SAVE money by spending it.
Instead of seeing that I spent $200 on $300 worth of clothes that were on sale and applauding my shopping savvy, my husband thinks we’re still out $200.
He’s so crazy.
Men have other nutty notions, like how you should pay off the credit card every month as soon as it’s due. How stupid is that? The Ovarian Theory of Economics recognizes that the beauty of credit cards is that you pay a little here and there. Otherwise, you might as well pay cash. Duh-huh.
I could say more but there’s a persistent ringing in my ears. Oh. He wants his “blankie.”
Lord, don’t let me kill him.