Friday, January 18, 2008

Woe Is Me

Last night my nose started running, my eyes started itching, and my throat started to feel scratchy. When my Lovely Bride got home I told her I was getting a cold. 


"Oh boy," she said, "here we go." 

"What does that mean?" I asked. 

"Nothing." 

"Liar. What did you mean?" 

"It's, you know, how you get," she said. 

"How I get?" 

"When you're sick." 

"What about when I'm sick?" 

"It's just, well, you're kind of a baby about it." 

Besides displaying an appalling lack of sympathy, this only demonstrated that she doesn't recognize a potentially life threatening medical condition. I pointed this out to two of my employees this morning, both of them women. 

"Your poor wife," one said. 

"I don't know how she's going to put up with you," said the other. 

"I don't know how she ever puts up with him," said the first. 

"True," said the second. "We get paid and it's still unbearable." 

I left before this nonsense could get any further out of hand. I can spot a trend. In this case, a trend of no female empathy. Failure to empathize, please note, is one of the characteristics of the psychopath. Draw your own conclusions. Beyond the potential for violence, this inability to understand the full magnitude of my suffering proves a number of my suspicions about women in medicine. 

As a service to my wife and anyone else with an interest in my well-being, which should include everyone, allow me to present a ranking of medical issues. Feel free to clip it out and keep it in your wallet in case you ever need to perform triage. 

Most serious 
My current cold 
Any other disease or injury I suffer in the future 

Moderately serious 
The times I've been sick in the past 
Diseases other people have that I might catch 
Diseases or injuries other people have that inconvenience me 

Least serious 
Diseases and injuries that don't directly affect me 

With that out of the way, I need to track down the Lovely Bride and convince her to make me a nice cup of hot tea. Once she sees this chart I'm sure she'll understand. 

UPDATE: I am still sick today but I'm being very brave about it.

14 comments:

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Rules of Sickness:

When your child is sick, treat him/her like an adult.

When your spouse is sick, treat him/her like a child.

Righteous Bubba said...

Ooo! Ooo!

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die." -Mel Brooks

Anonymous said...

I notice that you participated in your end of my Blogroll Reform. I'm still in the process of collecting my Canuckistani links, but you're going to have pride of place in my Ameriroll.

Jennifer said...

Grizzled usually turns into Sarah Bernhardt when sick... lots of drama, lots of emoting.

I'm with your lovely bride on this one.

Suck it up, Snag.

But get better soon. :)

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Sick men make the best berserkers.

They have nothing to lose.

Snag said...

I like this berserker idea. Maybe I'll go push some people into an open sewer.

Don't forget, Sarah Bernhardt's dead. Just proves my point.

Anonymous said...

UC never gets sick. It's quite nice.

Feel better and get on the good meds EARLY!! Trust AG. AG almost DIED last week.

Chuckles said...

Hey, Snag, I got your back. Women don't understand real sickness. Men are strong. Men are tough. Men lose strong points and slide down the tough scale when we admit to sickness. Thus, we only admit to being sick when something serious has happened. Shit, look at the Black Knight, he kept fighting even after he had no arms or legs.

Jennifer said...

Yeah Snag! It's only a flesh wound!

Anonymous said...

UPDATE: I am still sick today but I'm being very brave about it.

LOL!

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

We should probably decide how we're going to carpool to Snag's funeral, and who's going to bring flowers. I'd hate to have to do all that planning in a rush.

I bet the wake will be pretty good though. I'll bring some little chili dogs.

How long do you think his Lovely Bride will wait before she starts dating? I've got this friend...

Snag said...

I'm feeling better. . . .

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

"no you aren't, you'll be stone dead in a minute."

Kathleen said...

you're not fooling anyone!

I think we should bring a chew toy for Katie when we come for the wake. We can call it Snag. It will be just like old times.