Momnesia

Magnestized Virus May Cause Spontaneous Combustion

AUGUSTA, GA - I've spent the last two weeks fighting a virus that won't go away. It sits in my chest and makes me wheeze. It seems to be letting up a little today, but the experience reminds me of the first time I was sick after I had Emerson.

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I woke up this morning with a familiar tickle in the back of my throat. I’m prone to strep throat, and it always starts the same way.

“Uh-oh,” I turn to my husband. “I thing I’b gettig sig.”

Scott chuckles at my congestion. “You think?”

I am miserable at work. Typing hurts my fingers. Breathing hurts my head. I feel my temperature start to rise. When I get home for lunch, I take my temperature with an ear thermometer: 102˚.

I am bored lying on the couch. I use the ear thermometer to check my belly button. Scott pokes his head in.

“What does it say?”

“If you believe my ear, it’s 102. If you believe my belly button, it’s a cool 98.6.”

“Go with the ear.”

I lie on the couch for a while, watching my 10-month-old, listening to my body, then call: “Honey, I have a question.”

He peers in. I tell him I’m roasting with fever, but my feet and hands are cold.

“So my question is: what if the virus is magnetized?”

Silence.

“I mean, what if it’s drawing the iron-rich blood from my extremities to my head?”

“Wait – aren’t you anemic?”

“Look, if I spontaneously combust, will you be able to get the baby away in time?”

He stomps out of the room. “You’re not going to combust.”

“It’s been known to happen!”

My daughter crawls up to the couch and pulls herself up to stand. She pokes me in the nose with her finger.

“Boop!” I say, and she laughs. It’s her new game. She pokes me again. “Boop!”

Scott comes in again, this time with a sandwich for me.

“How do you feel?”

“Oh, great.”

“No, come on.”

“Okay. You know how sometimes the dog will poop in the backyard in a spot where no one ever notices it, and it lays in the sun and dries out and turns white?”

Scott is turning green. I feed the baby some of my sandwich crust and she bounces with excitement.

“Well, you know how the lawn guy will ride over it as he cuts the grass and it gets chopped up by the lawnmower? Well, I feel like the chopped-up poop.”

He leaves the room again. I’m not sure he’s coming back.