Robert - I Can't Actually Speak Today

Update: I have mono. All is cruelly explained.

It isn't until you have a sore throat when you understand exactly how often you swallow. Some people might call this a fascinating look at our bodies' unconscious phenomena. I prefer to call it severe pain. I swear to god, I do not swallow this often normally. My mouth is churning out saliva by the gallon. Each time I suck it up and swallow, my eyes shut tight and my ears and neck stretch out which in turn forces some kind of chin-thrust move. By the time I've lowered my head back into human position, I notice that my glands have already produced more fucking saliva for me to deal with. What the fuck is that about, mouth? Are you still mad about the dentist appointment? Because let it go. There's no need for this kind of horrible treatment. The only thing stopping me from installing a spit cup next to the couch here is my dignity. Look out, roommates, because dignity doesn't really mean that much to me.

Here are the things I imagine have vanquished and taken the place of my tonsils:

• Golf balls
• Pool balls
• Exercise balls
• My kidneys
• Tiny aliens that stab at my throat with tiny alien swords
• Two tiny alien motherships
• Two full-sized alien motherships
• That ball gag I lost when things got freaky
• Porcupines

I also expect there to be a combination of the above things.

Of course, like a great infomercial, it doesn't stop at strep or potentially mono. I also have a debilitating cough likely caused by a separate chest infection. It's like two illnesses for the price of one, which are free I guess, so I'm not really saving any money at all. I would more accurately describe my cough as an occasional knee-buckling series of mucous-influenced, volume-11 wheezes. This human air compressor inside me is not friendly to those really sensitive tonsils we were just talking about. Imagine if you fell on the ice because you were drunk or something and you scraped off all the skin on your knee. Then your brain started telling you it would be a good idea every half hour or so to really just hit the shit out of that thing with a hammer you inexplicably have. That's what coughing is like.

You might remember my last, equally self-pitying post, where I outlined a series of unwanted liquids that have found their way onto my bed lately. This week, my bed has been inducing feverish night sweats, by which I have nightly turned my bed into a water bed (not as cool as it sounds). This usually happens in two parts: I wake up at approximately 3:00 am, and one side of my bed is soaked. I tiredly roll over until 5:00 am when I have finished watering any plants that may be growing in my mattress. I look like I just ran a marathon or covered myself in baby oil, and suddenly the couch looks real pretty for the fifth day in a row.

I'm not really sure how to tell the pretend doctors over there at the Student Health Center that those antibiotics they really unconfidently prescribed me aren't working. I mean, I want to get better pretty soon. This pile of my things next to my couch/base station is getting real big. Pretty soon, I think it'll have trapped me here for good. Is that what you want, mouth? That means no more kissing girls, man, I mean it. Now stop this shit.