It started out, on Wednesday, as a slight irritation at the back of the throat. You know the one; it feels like you inhaled a circle of fine-grained sandpaper about the size of a dime. You feel it, and you say to yourself, "Uh-oh, I'm in danger of getting sick. I should probably go directly home from work, chase a tuna sandwich with a half-gallon of Sunny Delight, and get to bed early."
But you don't. Instead, you go to the second show of the "In The Raw" acoustic series at the State Theatre in St. Pete, and you watch a young singer-songwriter named Suzy Q tear it up. And you have a small glass of whiskey because your throat's really starting to bother you, and for some reason you think that's going to help. And you run around outside in the cold with your jacket open, playing your new song on car stereos for anyone too polite to deny you. And you end up at Georgie's Alibi with Peaches and another singer-songwriter, Jeremy Gloff, and a bunch of other people, and it's not really late and you're not really tying one on or anything, but by then your nose is running freely and your ears feel like they're packed with tiny balloons full of warm gas, and you know that you'll wake up Thursday morning with a slight fever and your lungs jammed up with seaweed.
By "you," of course, I mean "I."
Getting sick used to be a minor annoyance for me, just a five-day hangover without the antecedent boozy fun. At some point, however, I became one of those men whom the flu seems to render incapable of doing anything other than remain prostrate, watch Comedy Central and whine until somebody brings me some juice.
I'm the guy who starts to cough, and immediately wants his Mommy. While I'm sure Mom would be happy to fly in from Austin to feed me a thermometer and tell me about this supposedly healthy herb called Echinacea that she just read about on the Internet (undoubtedly in a skeptical tone of voice meant to imply that no voodoo dust could compete with soup, rest and fluids), that would take at least a day or two.
So it generally falls on Peaches – or whoever happens to call the house while she's at work – to bring me juice and beg me to take a shower and eventually try to smother me with the pillow that I hold out for fluffing.
Getting sick sucks. Getting sick in Florida is even worse, because it feels like a cruel joke, like you're basically doing the job of being human all wrong. It's like going skiing in Utah in the absolute dead of winter, and somehow getting a sunburn. I go outside, and it's like, 52 degrees, and it makes me ill. Who am I, the Bubble Boy?
Then I turn on the TV, and New York or Boston or Wherever is buried under four feet of snow. Downed live wires have turned whole cities into glistening, glassine gauntlets of death. Yet the streets are still full of thick-blooded Northerners determined to go about their day.
Down here, I get incapacitated by a brisk breeze and a sore throat. It's an affront, really.
When I finally do go outside again, because what this bad cold obviously needs is curly fries (and everyone has finally had enough and abandoned me to my own devices), even the mild, half-assed attempt at difficult weather that felled me is gone. It's almost 70 degrees. And I just know that a gaggle of British tourists is swimming, swimming, not three miles from where a mountain of phlegmy tissues makes my coffee table look like a scaled-down parade float constructed in a hurry by far-sighted 7-year-olds.
The absolute worst thing about being sick, though, is the cabin fever. It may not be such a big deal when you live somewhere the weather keeps you indoors for months on end anyway. But when you're used to spending at least a portion of every day outside, enjoying the traffic, that sense of cooped up-ness sets in quickly – particularly when you know there's a weekend's worth of fun going on somewhere out there.
Last Thursday through Sunday the Skatepark of Tampa held the 11th annual "Tampa Am" skateboarding competition, and the festivities marking its 13th year of business. The Tampa Am is about the biggest amateur contest the sport has to offer, drawing skaters and spectators from all over the world, and the anniversary party/concert is one of the few times each year when I can see great punk bands and not be the oldest person in the room. (It's also one of the few events on earth where a person can wear a trucker hat and look natural, and not like a trend-chasing idiot.)
Plus, skaters are, you know, crazy – the thought of all those chaotic nutjobs running amok after hours while I laid at home and waited for the color of my mucus to change was almost too much to bear.
So I didn't. Instead, I went to the anniversary party at Masquerade on Saturday night, and I watched the bands The Soviettes and Against Me! tear it up. And I had a small glass of whiskey because my throat was really bothering me, though I knew it probably wasn't going to help. And I ended up at the New World Brewery with some other bands and a bunch of other people, and it wasn't really late (yet) and I wasn't really tying one on, but by then my nose was running freely and the pressure in my ears was even worse, and I knew I'd wake up Sunday morning right back where I'd been on Thursday.
And I did.
But it was worth it.
Almost.
Somebody call my Mommy.
scott.harrell@weeklyplanet.com
This article appears in Jan 26 – Feb 1, 2005.