Complex Numbers

Swine Flu

It hit me like a crosstown bus.

One minute, I was enjoying a fine, spring day, and the next - boom! - aches all over my body, sweltering fever, the shakes...

They say it's swine flu, and that people have died from it. I don't know - I haven't been to Mexico, or been around anyone who has. They say I shouldn't go out, that I'll recover in seven or eight days.

Seven or eight days? How am I supposed to survive seven days shut in at home? But I guess the alternative is to risk spreading the virus, like mustard on a ham sandwich. Funny, that doesn't make me hungry right now.

Why me, God? Why, out of all the people I know, did it have to be me? Why couldn't it be Marcia, the receptionist who is always giving me the cold eye, as if she knows I'd sexually harass her if I thought I could get away with it? Why not Frank, the dipshit who keeps stealing my parking spot? Hell, why couldn't Mr. Jamison catch this, be stuck at home for a week so he's not looking over everyone's shoulders.

Instead, now I gotta call in and tell Mr. Jamison why I won't be at work for a week.

Swine flu.

They say men can't get mad cow disease, because men are pigs. Well, here we go. Fucking oink.

You know what? To hell with it. I'm going in anyway. I will not suffer alone. I'm going to rub my hands all over Marcia's telephone when she's not looking (all the while pretending it's her breast), blow my nose and wipe it on Frank's Porsche's door handle, and then all over the doorknob to the executive washroom just to get Mr. Jamison.

That's right. If I'm going down, I'm taking all of them with me. Bastards.

But first, I need to go root for some truffles.