Day 158: You Give Me Fevah

Saturday morning I had a little cough. I didn't think much of it, but when Drea heard me barking over the phone, she said, "Uh-oh. You better watch that. Sounds like croup. It can turn into pneumonia, y'know." I didn't think much of that either. She's a mother – she's supposed to worry.

Within two hours, I was racked with fever, chills and bones so achy I considered surgically removing them myself. Damn her for being right.

The timing of this freight train fever was a little awkward, however, because I was the guest of honour at a bon voyage dinner party that night. I had to go. Like HAD to. I put on six sweaters and got in my car.

At the party, I walked around getting hugs from everybody because I was in that pre-sick state where all you really want is your mommy and someone to rub your back for awhile. Most of the party guests obliged me. I might have pissed off some wives. Whatever.

The next morning, the fever was still there, but I'd promised to drive Boyfriend to the annual festival of binge drinking known as the Superbowl Party. I was miserable and sick. He was toting forties of tequila, Baja Rosa and Jagermeister.

For the rest of the day, I duked it out with the fever that wouldn't quit, waiting for Drunken Boyfriend to call for a ride. The words "take a frickin' cab" were ever-present in my mind, of course, but luckily, some other sucker's girlfriend agreed to take my sucker home.

She was pissed off. I don't blame her because she, like me, probably believes that men who are over thirty should:
a) not be doing anything that involves Baja Rosa,
b) not be binge drinking their faces off on a Sunday evening and
c) the previous two points being ignored, not be asking for rides home from smart people who chose not to do four hundred shooters in an afternoon.

Boyfriend arrived home, sloshed and enjoying the beginnings of the Fever Freight Train that had been kicking my ass for 24 hours.

He stood shaking in the shower until the hot water ran out. Then he ran a bath and swore at it for being cold. Finally he descended into the kind of fever dream peyote trip that would make Jim Morrison jealous.

"We can break it," he mumbled in the dark. "We can break it." He thrashed and pounded on his side of the bed, while I tried to get some sleep. I don't know who sold him that line of bunk about throwing a bowling ball on one side of the pillow-top mattress and the other side not feeling a thing. It's not bloody true.

"Quit it," I growled irrationally through the fever haze. "West by northeast," he replied. I followed that strange compass bearing...all the way to the spare room.