#154. or, Blow Me Down

  My wife brought the flu home from work. And to be fair, she told me that if I didn't stop kissing on her, I was going to get infected by it too. I suppose, looking back now, that that was good advice. However, as part of her nightly ritual toward attempting some semblance of sleep while she had this flu, she let me rub her back and chest down with Vap-O-Rub. Which, I'm sorry to say, is a job I may have taken to heart, with a little too much vigor, because, well........you know.......boobs!

  That's part of the reason I couldn't resist showering her with affections, but now, unfortunately we both have the flu.

  Actually, she's almost through the worst of it. I'm just getting started. If you came to our house today, and I was to take you on a guided tour, you may mistake our bedroom for a pharmacy. There's everything from anti-inflammatory creams for my shoulders so I can lift my arms above my head, to flu medicines, to hippy oils that are somehow supposed to make you better by rubbing them into your feet.

  We have nasal decongestants that you squirt up your nose, ranging from mild, that sort of feels like you're  breathing in a blast of cool ocean mist, to the industrial strength variety. Which tend to feel more like a gang of rogue oompa loompas have invaded your nasal cavity and are scrubbing out everything from your sinuses to the backs of your eyeballs with a mixture of battery acid and the ebola virus.

  We have pills to keep you unstuffed and alert during the day, so you can safely operate heavy machinery. And pills that you take at night, with a mild amount of sedative, so you can sleep peacefully through a natural disaster. But those make it a little hard to get up at 3:00 AM to check cows, so I've been avoiding them.

  Also, we each have a partially used roll of toilet paper going, because eventually you get to a point where you can no longer be bothered to pluck tissues from the box, one at a time to blow you nose, and it's easier and more efficient to make use of a continuous roll. If it's good enough for bear's asses, it's good enough for my nose.

  The time of year is upon us where I'm getting quite a bit busier, as we move into spring, and with the snow now mostly all gone, there's plenty of work to be done outside. Because I'm outdoors, and one couldn't possibly carry enough kleenex to last through the day while I have the flu, I get to employ one of the less graceful maneuvers, that I learned from my Dad. The farmer's blow.

  The farmer's blow is achieved by holding a thumb over one nostril, aiming the uncovered nostril slightly to the side, and blowing with enough force to blast out any snot you may have lodged up there, away and onto the ground. Then you repeat it with the other nostril in the opposite direction.

  I realize this is a little disturbing, but consider, before there were tissues, almost every farmer used to pack a handkerchief to blow his nose into. I'm talking way back here, before handkerchiefs were hats. Now, I've glanced into the bit of nastiness that comes out of my head when I have a cold, mostly to make sure I haven't lost any valuable grey matter in the blow, and I think it may be better to leave that mess on the ground as opposed to folded nicely into a piece of cloth, tucked away in your pocket, to deal with at some later time?

  I try to be discreet about it though. It's not like I'm aiming up tin cans on the fence or blasting one out onto the pavement at the CO-OP, if I stop for coffee.

  This takes place mostly in the barnyard. And I usually try to not let loose until I'm alone. That's not so bad is it? I mean it IS the barnyard,

   ............frankly, there's usually much larger and disgusting things out there to avoid stepping in.


  Linking up this week with the I Don't Like Mondays blog hop.  Stop by and read a few awesome blogs!