I'm checking off the list in my head:

floss
brush teeth
clean ears
check deodorant
pack extra tissue
clean ears again
check the mirror
oh, and breathe.


For a minute I feel like Audrey and I laugh.  I washed my face and hands before I come, I did.

I open the door and I'm greeted by a smile and a clipboard.  Please give us every tiny, little detail of your life.  The name of your great aunt and what you had for dinner last Tuesday.  When your pen runs out of ink, here's another.  Oh, and don't forget to sign on page 27, 49, and 53.  He'll be right with you.

An hour later he is right with me.  Poking and shining and looking into the openings in my head.  And then he starts talking.  There's poison in your nose and in your ears and traveling down to the rest of you.  Here, let me give you a flier.  There- you see that picture?  That's why it sounds like the ocean in your ears and why your throat feels like it is falling off in chunks every time you swallow.

I am looking longingly at the bottle of germ-x sitting on the counter and wondering how much it would burn if I squirted a pump or two down my throat.  Or maybe the best approach would be to shoot it up my raw, stretched out nose. 

My strategies are interrupted.  Would you like a prescription? A prescription?   A bottle full of lovely feel-better-pills prescription?  Is this a trick question? 

I've stolen all of the toilet paper from the bathrooms.  I wake up thinking there's a monster under my bed and then realize it's just the sound of my breathing.  There was kleenex stuck to my face this morning when I looked in the mirror.  The only time I can breathe is when I'm in the shower and look at my hair.  It can't handle this much moisture.  I'm a snotty, frizzy, messy mess.  Give me the blessed pills.  Please.

And now?  Now I am human again.  I can taste my food.  I no longer sound like a hacking crow.  And I am finally having a good hair day.  It's the little things, you know?