Monday, November 09, 2009

I have returned. I think.

I had given up on this blog. It’s been a challenge lately to think funny. To sum it up I’m a banker. Not a fun profession to be in right now. Both of my sons were mortgage brokers. Notice I said “were”. Both my sons are going through tough times.

It is difficult when you write a humor blog about life and family when there is all this negative crap going on. I want to respect my sons privacy (a little anyway) so the humorous moments related to their job struggles just seem off limits.

But then something changed.

On top of everything else my wife gets the H1N1 virus otherwise known as the “Swine Flu”.

Trust me.

Not funny.

This is a nasty bug. I have never seen my wife this sick in thirty two years of marriage. She looks and feels like she’s been hit by a bus.

Make that two buses and the second one backed up and ran over her again.

Neither one of us likes to go to the doctor. Normally my wife would have to be bleeding out her eyes before she’d see a doctor. So when my wife said she “needed” to go to the doctor, I got a little worried.

The doctor warned me that she was contagious and asked me if I had any underlying health issues.

“Well I am a tad overweight. But that’s because I’m saving up for the apocalypse in 2012.”

Nothing.

Not even a smile.

He then prescribed rest, plenty of fluids and “Tamiflu”. Tamiflu is an antiviral that… well I don’t know exactly what it does but she had to have it.

So I went to Vons, dropped off her prescription for Tamiflu at the pharmacy in the back and then went around the store stocking up on Lysol, Clorox, Purell, Anti Viral Kleenex, Rubber Gloves, surgical masks, soups, popsicles, eggs, oregano, rosemary and provolone cheese.

When I was sick my grandmother always gave me a little piece of provolone cheese to make me feel better. She also put a raw egg under my pillow and taped oregano and rosemary to my bedroom door. A Sicilian grandmother is a lot like Jesus. They can heal anything.

So after I’m done loading up on flu stuff I go back to the pharmacy to pick up my wife’s prescription. The pharmacist told me I was lucky to get “Tamiflu” because it had been “flying off the shelves”. And then he said the following:

“Make sure she takes this with food, she should not operate heavy machinery or drive, and you should be on the look out for any odd behavioral changes.”

I looked right at him and said:

“Odd behavioral changes? My wife is a 52 year old premenopausal Portuguese grandmother. How am I supposed to know the difference?”

The pharmacist looked up at me, paused, and then at the same time we both laughed… and then I started to cry a little… because I was serious.

My wife is still sick but there are signs of improvement. She gave me the “evil eye” this morning. Anyone married to an Italian or Portuguese woman knows exactly what I’m talking about. The “evil eye” is a lot like X-Ray vision only it can suck out your soul.

So I’m going to try again to find the funny even in the most negative of things. It won’t be easy but I need it for my own sanity.

And people please, please, please don't screw around with the "Swine Flu." Get a vaccination as soon as you can and make sure your kids are vaccinated. This thing is really brutal.