Another true story

New Year's Eve, 2003. Husbandly One and I did not go out. We did not party. We did not drink.

New Year's Day, 2004. I woke up at 8 am, and I hate to say it but I was a little smug about my lack of hangover. Mere hours later, I was wishing for a hangover. I was wishing for a blunt trauma injury. I was wishing I was dead.

Out of NOWHERE came the most astounding throat infection I have ever experienced. I woke up at 8am completely healthy, and by 11 am my fever was so high that Husbandly One was scared. My throat was on fire, I was only semi-coherent, and swallowing made me cry out in pain. No, not swallowing food, just swallowing. Any idea how many times a day we instinctively swallow the saliva in our mouths? Let me be the first to tell you, it is OFTEN. Like, several times per minute. And I couldn't do it. Husbandly One rigged me up with a spit bucket until the emergency clinic opened at noon on New Year's Day, and then rushed me in.

The doctor took one look in my mouth. Exact quote: "Wow."

I desperately needed antibiotics, but I couldn't swallow anything. The doctor hesitated to put me on IV (therefore meaning being admitted to the hospital) and therefore prescribed the only liquid antibiotic he could think of at the time, seeing how pills were completely out of the question. What I ended up getting was an antibiotic formula meant for BABIES.... so while a six month old could get away with a teaspoon a day, I had to take an entire bottle of the stuff every day for the next ten days. (Hey, it was a clinic open on New Year's Day. Don't be judgin')

We got back home, and Husbandly One put me to bed after pouring me a beer mug of antibiotic. I cried for the entire half hour it took me to get it down. And then, in desperation, he said, "Tell me what I can get you, what can I do, PLEASE give me a way to be helpful." (Ok, he didn't say it quite that way, but that's what he meant.)

I might have been out of it, but even fever-crazy chicks can be brought back to reality. I realized that, more than anything, I needed calories. But how to get them? Swallowing was my sworn enemy, and it didn't look like me and that bitch would be making up any time soon. Finally, I saw the answer.

"Strawberry milkshake. I need a strawberry milkshake, I think I can get that down and it has fat in it so it's good. Strawberry milkshake."

And then I kind of passed out.

I don't know how much time passed before I came back to myself, but it was the noise in the kitchen that did it. The URNG URNG URNG KWHIR noise coming out of the kitchen.

I (wrongly) thought I had been clear that I was asking for a Dairy Queen milkshake. But Husbandly One went to the grocery store, on January 1st, to buy actual strawberries, so that he could blend my milkshake at home.

I had been dreaming of a nice, thick, icy, milkshake.

Husbandly One eventually came into our bedroom with his gift of love. He had blended expensive strawberries with 1% milk, because he remembered how much I hate ice cream. And that was it, strawberries and 1% milk.

Now, to be fair, I DO hate ice cream. And he remembered that and tried to make me a beverage I could stomach. MEANWHILE, I have been thinking (but not saying), "I will eat a milkshake, even though it contains ice cream, because it will be coolly soothing and I need those calories, damn it."

Instead of a scrumdilicious concoction, Husbandly One thrusts a luke warm glass of menstrual fluid at me and says, "I love you baby, I am so worried about you, I want you to get better, drink this."

And to my credit, I did.

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You know, sometimes that idiot I'm in love with misunderstands me. And sometimes that idiot gets it wrong. And sometimes that idiot misses the point.

But he is MY idiot, and he loves me and I love him. And everything he does, he does for me.





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