She Was a Day(Quil) Tripper

April 17, 2012

I’m sick again because my immune system checked my calendar and noticed this would be a really bad week for me to be less than functional. My white blood cells schedule all their fights for the days I have a lot to do. It’s a fun game we like to play.

I’m not good at getting sick. In an ideal world, I would get unearthly pale and sit in my bed embroidering something while people fretted around me. I’d bravely said things like, “Don’t worry about me. I’ll pull through.” with a weak, tragic smile. If it was bad enough, I’d die with a tiny sigh and a promising poetry career cut tragically short. Also, for some reason I’d be blonde.

And I would have a lightsaber!

I’m not graceful at all when I get sick in real life. I scare people away because I snap and whine a lot. If I tried embroidery, the best-case scenario is that I’d end up with a rudely-worded throw pillow. In the worst-case scenario, many of my friends would end up with embroidery needle-sized puncture wounds. I’m pretty sure that when I die, I’ll be burping or picking a wedgie. There won’t be a tragically short poetry career because writing poetry gives me nightmares.

I think I’m bad at being sick because I have no patience for it. I get frustrated when things I usually don’t have to think about (like breathing, swallowing, and being alive in general) are harder than usual. I have other stuff to focus on. There’s no time for this nonsense! In an effort to cut the time I spend in bed down to a minimum, I run for the DayQuil whenever I get a cold. It’s never a good idea and I never, ever learn.

Things I Like About DayQuil

– I like how I forget I’m sick because I’m busy staring at my knuckles or drawing weirdly detailed pictures of insects.

– I like how uninhibited my social network updates become.

This happened.

Then this happened.

– I like how pretty and orange the pills are. Let’s draw pictures of them! Let’s write odes to them! Let’s hold them up to the light and stare at them!

– I like how cashiers have to ID me when I buy it. I start to get smug when I pull out my driver’s license. I may look like I’m 12, but I’ve been able to buy this stuff for years. GO AHEAD. MAKE MY DAY.

– I like how you used to be able to make meth from it! (Just kidding. But I do kind of like the implied trailer park junkie reputation it has.)

Things I Don’t Like About DayQuil

– I don’t like how I forget EVERYTHING because I’m busy staring at my knuckles or drawing weirdly detailed pictures of insects.

– I don’t like how completely unhinged and unfocused my social network updates become.

Everything is black and white and there’s no sound!

– Hey. Did you know you used to be able to make meth from DayQuil?

– Do you want to see how weird my knuckles are?

Adventures in DayQuil!

– I was taking DayQuil the day my high school biology class studied fruit fly genetics. We were each assigned a fly and we were supposed to be drawing quick sketches of its genetic traits. I spent the entire class period drawing my fly. It was amazing. I got every little hair on his little fly back. Every line in his wing. Every weird bump on his weird fly face. After class, I tried to give the picture to the biology teacher I had a crush on as a gesture of affection. He graded it and handed it back. I’m going to die alone.

– One time I thought there was a serial killer after me.

– Another time I went on this DayQuil-induced rant about Facebook etiquette.

– When I got sick in February, I became totally convinced there was a gila monster under my bed. I also spent the whole day only wearing mascara on one eye because I got distracted halfway through my morning routine by an intense need to Google pictures of lizards in hats.

Pictured: A gila monster. Not pictured: My bedroom, a hat.

– That same day, I felt it was vitally important to shave my legs without getting my hair wet, which is tricky when you don’t have a tub. With DayQuil as my muse, I invented a cool shower cap! Then I decided that taking a picture of myself while wearing it was a really good idea. Now I have a nice photo of me looking really excited about wearing a Ziploc bag on my head.

American ingenuity at its finest and least-embarrassing.

– Most recently, I wrote a super pointless blog post about DayQuil shenanigans. When I couldn’t think of a conclusion, I just changed the– OH MY GOD! MY KNUCKLES ARE SO BONY, YOU GUYS.

Written by Listful Thinking Posted in Too Silly Tagged with cold, Dayquil, Humor, list, sick, Social media