I got a freaking viral throat infection! How's that for a happy holiday? I was laid up in bed for all of Christmas Eve and Day swallowing razor blades!
I also got a hot sandwich maker -- one of those waffle iron units you put a sandwich in and it not only heats the sandwich up, but divides the sandwich into two sealed triangle-shaped pouches. I don't know how I ever lived life without this thing. It seems like I was happy before getting the sandwich maker, but I must have been living in hell, because I've probably used it forty times in the past three days. I don't see how our forefathers ever survived the winter without one...or even wanted to. I think we owe our forefathers a very grateful salute for enduring all of the tragic hardships which befell them in the making of our country such as smallpox and a complete lack of homemade hot pockets in three minutes or less.
The sandwich maker almost makes up for the sore throat, but not quite. I'm telling you this sore throat was a beast unlike anything I'd ever encountered. THE PAIN! Dear Lord in Heaven, if only there was a magical hot pocket to cure the woeful pain of a virally infected sore throat.
I've experienced a lot of pain in my life...
When I was fifteen I offered to help my dad shuck a wheelbarrow full of corn. I'd hack off the ends of the ears with a MEAT CLEAVER (take note) and then pull off the husks. Well, upon reaching in for yet another ear of corn, a spider the size of a dinner plate leapt onto my arm. My first instinct was to swipe at it with my other hand. Unfortunately, my first instinct should have been to drop the MEAT CLEAVER from my other hand first. The end result is that I plunging the MEAT CLEAVER nearly to the bone in my arm. The spider got a way.
The sore throat was worse than that!
When I was nine I was x-rayed for possibly having scoliosis, that disease which mangles your spine into a sheep shank knot. The x-ray proved negative for that, but did find a benign cyst just inside my rib cage. The next week a couple of surgeons ripped me open, spread my ribs apart with Craftman power tools, yanked out the cyst, and sewed me up (acutally, they used some sort of surgical super glue.) And if that wasn't enough, they left about two feet of an inch wide tube inside me to drain out excess body goo as I healed.
The sore throat was worse than that!
Oh well, at least the Vicodin I was perscribed is making me see things now. Better go!
