SomaCow

I’m fully aware that I am about as healthy as drinking a jar of mayonnaise through a straw.

I eat too much junk food.
I drink too much.
I smoke too much.
I have too much sex. What? Shut up.

I get winded making the bed.
I have to take frequent rest breaks while riding an escalator.
When using a ladder to hang Christmas decorations, I have to establish a “base camp” on the second rung.

What I’m saying is: it came as no surprise to me that I almost died from the killer “Captain Micks” flu virus that Mickey gave to us all.

What DID surprise me was how quickly, and completely, the disease disabled me, and how long it lasted.

I’m recovered now, and I really appreciated all of your “Get Well Soon”, “We miss you”, “OMG it turns out that you really ARE the source of the SomaCow funny, get your ass back there!” emails, but I thought I would give you a private glimpse into my two weeks of suffering, in hopes that it might at least garner me some sympathy b00bie pics.

A Day on my Deathbed

11:00am – Wake up. Open left eye. Rest briefly. Open right eye.
11:15am – Ask someone to please wring out my pillowcase and replace it with one that is neither dripping nor off-green.
12:00pm – Wish that I could remember what food tastes like.
12:30pm – Take the ninth and tenth Nyquil ComaCaps of the day.
2:00pm – Wake up lying on the cold bathroom tile, wondering whether I was headed there to pee, barf or re-apply my hair gel.
3:00pm – Wish that I could remember what cigarettes taste like,
4:30pm – Insert a ShamWow into each nostril. Try to sleep on my back.
6:00pm – Enjoy a hearty dinner of Afrin Nasal Spray and Cherry Hall’s.
7:00pm – Watch “Friends”. Hey, I’m not DEAD.
7:30pm – Wish that I could remember what sex tastes like.
8:00pm – Collapse into a restless slumber for the night, with fevered dreams of Jennifer Aniston rubbing Vick’s Vap-o-Rub on my pompadour, which causes sparks to shoot out and collect into a rectangle that begins to burn my head.
8:15 – Wake up long enough to realize that what is actually happening is that the heating pad has ignited my hair gel.
8:16 – Decide that putting out the fire can wait until tomorrow.
zzz…ZZZ…zzz…ZZZ…

I wouldn’t wish this miserable virus on anyone. Please, please, please, dear listeners, get your flu shots.

And never, never, never purchase butane hairstyling products.

Geoff and Mickey are always teasing me about being “old man on the show”. I secretly suspect that this is merely because I was born a long time before they were. But now I guess I can’t complain, because I have finally committed the ultimate old-person act:

“*GASP*”, you gasp, “You have purchased white Sans-a-Belt slacks?!?!”

No, don’t be ridiculous.

I have registered to vote.

Registration, and the whole voting process, conjures up images in my mind of my grandfathers who, after watching fat, old, white men in black suits on the evening news for two hours, causing me to miss the crucial opening minutes of “Sanford and Son” where the whole premise of the episode is established, would grumble and cuss and kick their pale, veiny, spindly grandfather legs at the TV, and swear that they were going to vote against that sonofabitch whom they just voted INTO office during the previous election.

See? Old people actually CARE about what the valueless, ineffectual politicians say and do. Kids, like me, see the world with the clarity of youth and realize that it is far more important to eat Fruity Pebbles, watch Scooby-Doo and put baseball cards in the spokes of your bicycle because it makes a cool noise that sounds exactly unlike a motorcycle.

What’s more, I can PROVE that no elected official in history has had the slightest impact on this nation, or on me, or on you, or on our families as Americans. Ask the Republicans where the problems of today came from, and they will say “From the Clinton administration”. They realize that George Washington Bush has done NOTHING during his eight years in office that impacts us in any way. Next, ask the Democrats where the problems of the Clinton administration came from, and they will say…(ummm…hang on a second while I look up who the President was before Clinton…OH!..OK.) They will say that George Harvey Washington Bush (no relation) was the source of all the misery, completely negating anything that Clinton may have pretended to do while in office. And so it goes, back and back and back through Presidents Ronald Reagan and John Fitzpatrick Kennedy and Benjamin Franklin. None of them, if you ask their party, did anything wrong and none of them, if you ask the opposing party, did anything right.

Net effect: zero.

So, for years I just ignored Washington (the city, not the actual d00d, because I believe that he may be deceased) hoping that it would lobby and spend and impeach itself out of existence, and we citizens could all get back to the REAL American business of hating foreigners and manufacturing sub-standard cars.

But, I finally realized that participating in the election process gives me the ultimate power as an American: the power to vote AGAINST more fat, old, white men in black suits on the evening news for two hours, causing me to miss the crucial opening minutes of “The Office” where the whole premise of the episode is established.

I get it! I’m a big guy! An obvious target!

I am especially conscious of this fact when I travel. I recently had occasion to fly out of state, which means: I had to pass through airport security.

I understand that the fine men and women of the TSA (Passenger Harassment Authority) are there to keep us safe. Especially, they are interested in keeping us safe from dangerous grooming products, as you will soon see.

I was making my barefoot, unbelted-pants way through the security checkpoint. I must have looked like I was wildly caressing myself as I made a last-second check for anything metal that might make the detector beep. I always make the detector beep. I suspect that Geoff has implanted a microchip in my skull in order to steal both of my funny ideas, and that must be what sets off the alarms.

Nervously, I approach the electronic gate of Purgatory.

*BEEP*

Dammit.

They asked me, as always, to check my pockets and then step back through, but I am pretty sure they only do this to rub it in my face that I will always make the metal detector beep.

*BEEP*

“Step this way, sir.”

This time, they took me, and my carry-on bag, over to the side. They didn’t use the metal detector wand thingy on me. They just questioned me directly.

TSA Nazi: “You’re sweating. A lot.”
Me: “Yes.”
TSA Nazi: “Are you nervous?”
Me: “No, I am fat, in Florida, in August.”
TSA Nazi: “Do you always sweat this much?”
Me: “Don’t make me have to speak to you in a stern voice.”
TSA Nazi: “I’m going to open your bag.”
Me: “I’m going to sweat on your podium.”
TSA Nazi (going through my bag): “Hmmm…hmmm…uh-HUH!”
Me: “What?”

He pulls out what is clearly a highly explosive, fully charged, aluminum-plated can of armor-piercing shaving cream. He shows it to me, with a look on his face as if he expects me to confess to a crime.

Me (trying to be helpful): “It’s for sensitive skin.”

He drops it into the blast-proof hazmat disposal container on the floor beside him.

Me: “Ok, sorry for the trouble. I’ll just be…”
TSA Nazi (still rummaging through my stuff): “What is this?”
Me: “Laser fluid.”
TSA Nazi: “What?”
Me: “Hair gel.”
TSA Nazi: “You can only transport 3 ounces of gel, in a clear container!”
Me: “Well, that’s an eight-ounce bottle, and it’s a little over half full. Can you just squeeze some out?”
TSA Nazi: *silence*
Me: “I mean it. I’ll speak VERY sternly.”

So, they finally let me through, after confiscating half of my toiletries.

I put my shoes and belt back on, and moved quickly out of the way, because…well…

The woman in line behind me had a jar of Noxzema.

With a laser scope on it.