The Annual Winter Illness

It has happened again for the third straight year: an upper respiratory infection in the depths of winter.  I expected this to happen and took the precaution of saving my paid time off days for these months when there should perpetual cold and frozen liquid covering the lawns with a sheet of white icing. Alas, this winter is proving to be warmer than it should be, and we’ve had perhaps a total of nine inches of snow distributed over three separate meteorological incidences.  And, oh yes, before I forget, the forecast highs for this weekend are 63F and 65F.  

Yes, nice spring like temperatures…IN THE MIDDLE OF FEBRUARY!

EARTH TO PRESIDENT!  EARTH TO PRESIDENT!  GLOBAL WARMING IS NOT, WE REPEAT, NOT A HOAX!

So I have called in three straight days this week due to this year’s URI.  I am not worried about using up my time off: I have plenty to spare this year.  Unlike last year when the illness hung on for three weeks and just as many courses of antibiotics.  At least I can blame last year’s illness on a miscalculation by the world health community about which flu strains would be dominant and therefore the strain which was put in to production for last year’s flu vaccination WAS NOT THE ONE WHICH ENDED UP BEING THE DOMINANT STRAIN!

EARTH TO WORLD HEALTH SCIENTISTS!  EARTH TO WORLD HEALTH SCIENTISTS! HOPE YOU DID NOT EFF IT UP THIS YEAR!

Today I made an appointment with my primary care physician.  I’m sure he’ll hem and haw about giving me an antibiotic for just a cold, but I do have an alternate plan.   If my PCP does not prescribe Dr. Fleming's Magic Mold (or some unreasonable facsimile thereof), I will go back to my pot of hot tea sweetened with honey and artificial sweetener, and perhaps fortified with lemon juice and brandy (no rubbish).   No, on second thought, there will be no perhaps about the brandy; it will be added.

So, as my annual winter illness waylays my work ethic, I note with some amusement and trepidation that the eventual apocalypse of western civilization continues at a good steady pace.  Yesterday, Herr Orange Furor gave an impromptu press conference to the White House Press Corps which was announced at the last moment.  The result can best be described as a belated case of voter regret, as in, “Oh my God!   What the eff have we done to ourselves?”

Or to quote the film actor Colin Clive in James Whale’s Frankenstein, “IT’S ALIVE! IT’S ALIVE! IT’S ALIVE!”

Herr Orange started the meeting with an announcement about his latest nominee to be Secretary of Labor.   His original choice bowed out when he realized that he did not have enough support for confirmation in Senate.   This happened because a majority of Senators realized that the first labor nominee lacked a certain empathy for the people he would be allegedly assisting, namely labor.

Herr Orange, you may want to scrutinize your cabinet choices more thoroughly before you nominate them.  MAY WE SUGGEST EXTREME VETTING?

Of course, it was not his fault that his first choice had to bow out.   He blamed the Democrats in Congress for holding up the confirmation of his nominees.  And, of course, the Democrats are aided and abetted by the unfair media who insist on publishing their “fake news” stories, and this is so unfair particularly since this Chief Executive has accomplished so much in his first 30 days in office and he won the Electoral College by a significant margin and…there were so many left turns in his arguments at this point that everyone was desperately searching for a spot to jump off.

The joke, a very bad one, is on all of us.   There will be no good spot to jump out of the way for at least four years.

SAD!

(Thank you for reading.  How long until Herr Orange stops whining about winning the Electoral College?)