Not down with the sickness

My earthly form is being converted entirely into mucus.  I've been skirting around the border of illness for the past couple weeks, occasionally dipping my big toe in long enough to get a raspy throat or runny nose, with the unpleasant knowledge that any passing butterfly could shove me over the brink into full-on miserable sickness.  And yesterday, that very thing happened.  I went to work feeling tired and about as under the weather as usual, and as the day wore on I got progressively more tired; like a cheap wind-up kid's toy found in a McDonald's happy meal and left forgotten after the first winding, white plastic cogs turning slower and slower until they don't move at all unless you nudge the toy with your foot, prodding it to jerk around briefly.  That's the point I hit when I got home.  I sat down on the couch and found I couldn't get back up.  I wanted to go upstairs to my room to collapse, but my groggy-though-determined efforts in that direction left me kneeling on the floor with my face plastered to the couch cushion where my derriere had so recently been settled.  Though drained of almost all energy, I delved into forgotten reservoirs and 45 minutes later had summoned the strength to animate my body long enough to move the 20 feet out of the main room and into a nearby dark hallway, where I collapsed heavily on the carpet and lay for 5 hours taking choking lungfuls of air at odd intervals and dozing.

And after that... I felt much better.  In fact I felt almost completely new again, aside from the fact that since then an inter-dimensional rift has opened in my body allowing an ungodly amount of mucus to pour through and out of me.

All things considered, I've been remarkably blessed in my health here.  I've spent endless days in the pouring rain, handling tickets and money, and worst of all, shaking hands with hundreds of old people who've been shut up with thousands of other old folks from countless countries and climes in a floating metal hulk at sea.  That's what'll get ya every time; the hand on hand contact.  Touching hands is unsafe and clearly how Rome ended, but I can't stop grabbing every five fingered microbial troop carrier that presents itself.  There's just something screwed deep down into me that recoils against refusing a gift freely offered, even if that gift is a person's living hand.   Add to that the long-houred days with weeks at a time between days off, and it's a miracle I haven't been more sick than I have.  It seems like most days I'll feel like total garbage, go to work and suddenly be totally fine all day until I get home and feel sick again.  I honestly feel that being able to keep working effectively is a blessing I'm being given, and I'm indeed grateful.

I have some funny stories about tourists, but it's 10:02 and I have to wake up for work at 4:00, so I'll have to update this tomorrow, or more probably on some other, ill-defined date.  Rusden out.