Merci beaucoup, gracias, danke, hvala lepa, bedankt. Thank you, thank you.

Thank you to whoever or whatever gave me this plague. You have no idea of the passion with which I long to repay you for your generosity. Not only can I not see my grandchildren today, I get to clear away clutter and wrap gifts and do school work.

I know, stop complaining. Truthfully though, I’m amazed at how many family and fiends are ill right now, all with one of two ailments: terrible sinus infections and nasty colds (me, the Thriller, others) and the dreaded stomach virus. Jake and Justin’s other grammie has pneumonia. This is awful. Happy holidays, right? However, cursory research on the topic reveals it’s pretty much S.O.P.

According to the Palo Alto Medical Foundation:

The URI (upper respiratory infection, or the common cold and its cousins) is estimated to cost $3.5 BILLION a year in the US alone, and accounts for 40 percent of the time lost from jobs and as many as 23 million lost school days.

That’s a lot of Kleenex and DayQuil, fiends. But hey, at least we have remedies to help with symptoms. Here’s a weird thing, though: I know people who don’t take anything to lessen their misery — and it’s not because of physical issues like high blood pressure or allergic reactions. They just resign themselves to suffering it out, and in the meantime, lose hours upon hours of sleep to incessant coughing or the inability to breathe with their mouths shut. This baffles the Fink. I mean, I’m all for being a tough guy and all, but when it interferes with my beauty rest, and hence my mood/performance/attitude at work, I’ll be a simpering weenie any day. Besides, I need all the beauty rest I can get.

Speaking of which…

Nah, nevermind. Coffee’s done and there’s work to do. Boo hoo. Happy weekend to you.

FO