Self Pity

When you have a nasty head cold there is little that makes you feel better. Your head is congested and achy your nose finds eve the concept of allowing air through impossible and nothing is right with the world. You can be in the most beautiful place on earth and it doesn’t matter because nothing is going to make you feel better. Not the gallons of hot herbal tea, not the sleep, certainly not the dishes that keep piling up in the sink and staring at you as though guilt might make you care about them one way or the other. The only time that you can breathe and start to feel a little more human is in a nice hot steamy shower. It opens up the lungs and sinuses and it’s the only time you feel warm enough. It’s heaven. Unless of course there is a pluming leak and the water has been turned off to be fixed and when the water is turned back on again at your insistence (the leak is TINY and in a location the causes no damage, the plumber wasn’t coming for four days and I can’t live without water) some mysterious bubble in the pipes or just some perverse imp that has decided that now is the time to act preventing the newly turned on water to actually arrive. You call the plumber but he’s taking a siesta, or is sick or some other way of saying ‘mañana’ which is too much to think about when all you have the energy to do is lie in bed and listen to yourself wheeze. Cough and sneeze and yell though you might, no number of snotty tissues will ever be enough to make it start working again. The only thing that will make it start working is the dissipation of the cold. When the worst of the pain is past you will be able to step greasy and unwashed into the shower. You might pretend that you’re still sick enough to fully appreciate it, but nothing will bring back those nasty moments where you were lying in bed barely able to breathe wishing desperately that you could just take a shower to open up your lungs a bit so you could get some sleep.

At least the weather is equally drippy.