Get up, get down with the sickness

Ah the yearly round of plague, how I have missed thee...

Actually, not so much lately, since The Boy's immune system seems to be sorting itself out. The first year of day care/nursery school it seemed like he came home every other Friday with some sort of new lung bung or drippy nose condition that would give him a spotty one week on/one week off attendance record. Having tasted human flesh, whatever was laying him low would give us a nibble too, though not nearly to the level it was poleaxing him.

Good times.

Well, he's sick for the first time in a long time, and it's a doozy. Some sort of upper respiratory thing that's all snot and coughing and sore throat, and I know this because we all have it too, and it seems like most of the people we know have it as well, including my place of work. Given our understaffed condition, it's not a good thing, since we have literally just enough people to cover the store, and so we're working sick for the most part. Delightful! On top of the other problems we're having, it's just a carousel of merriment! We seem to have been abandoned by our corporate masters, and have been left to fend for ourselves.

Onward then.

This whole getting sick thing is still a bit of a novelty for me, since for a good chunk of my twenties, people would be dropping around me and I'd be trotting along shaking my head at the poor suffering mortals whilst licking a doorknob and handling questionable raw chicken with no ill effect. For I have a mutant immune system! It would jump on invading organisms like they were lost in the wrong dark alley, and I was rarely if ever laid low.

Now I take powerful drugs to suppress it, and I catch every damn cold that comes through our house, just like the plebes I once mocked. Why? I hear you ask, Why would I give up such a powerful gift? Ah well, see, it's like this: The price was far too high.

For the gift was balanced by a powerful curse that ran along the lines of: Yes, you will be immune from illness, and shrug off minor injuries as if they were nothing. HOWEVER, you will look like a burn victim, and your joints will stop bending. Enjoy! PS, there will also be mind bending pain.

So now I take pills, and for the most part I look normal, and can walk without a cane, and can use my hands to type, but I get the colds.

A fair trade, me thinks.