Mission: H2O

I am looking for the humor in my own situation.

The average influenza virus, according to Google, is approximately 130 nanometers in size. That is, approximately 130 one-millionths of a millimeter. That means that you could line about 139,000 of the little bastards across the diameter of one thin U.S. dime. That is pretty small. Unimaginably small, as a matter of fact. It somehow doesn’t seem right that something so unimaginably small can fuck a human being up so completely.

Trying to pinpoint the moment when the little fiends found their way into the sanctity of your body is just about impossible. Out of the hundreds of seemingly innocuous daily activities: answering telephones, turning doorknobs, flushing toilets, or kissing a friend hello, or maybe even just having a conversation; it only took one. One opportunity for that 130-nanometer little shit to take its shot and move on in to the Land of Milk and Honey which is You; and your life is about to change completely, at least for a few days.

Things which were of monumental importance to you yesterday will vanish completely from your priorities. Gotta get those whites washed? Ha! Need to check those spreadsheets on the Henderson account? Fuck the Hendersons. At this point, the world is lucky if you can stand up long enough to crank the thermostat up to 80°.

Now, the most basic and perfunctory activities, things we do every day without thinking about them or giving them much effort, become the most colossal and often impossible tasks. The thought of standing at a mirror and shaving your face, for example, is so absurd that it is almost laughable. As is going to the kitchen to prepare something to eat; but that’s okay really, because the thought of actually consuming food is about as far from your mind as taking a Jazzercise class. Basically, any activity which requires you to be upright longer than one or two minutes and which isn’t immediately essential for basic human survival is pretty much out of the question.

And somehow, that 130 one-millionths of a millimeter-sized invader has the power to alter the passage of time. Days pass by like hours, you can practically watch the shadows move across your walls as they whiz by. Hours pass like minutes: is it 6:00am or 6:00pm? God forbid you have to sit down and catch your breath on the way to the bathroom; before you know it, you’ve been sitting on an ottoman with your nose running and staring at a dust bunny in the corner for 25 minutes.

The scenario: you’re in bed. You awaken to find you are thirsty. This is what happens when you are well:

Get out of bed. Go to kitchen. Get drink. Return to bed.

Elapsed time: no more than 90 seconds.

This is what you experience when some bastard sneezed on a pen last week and handed it to you to sign something:

“Oh my god. I am so thirsty. My tongue is so huge. Is that even my tongue? Terminal fucking cotton-mouth. I must get water. This is going to be really, really hard. I better rest up for it.”

At this point, your brain settles in for a nice long soak in the 101° crock-pot which your body has become. Numbly, you sink into the Lucy-In-The-Sky type of dreams which fever induces: marshmallow skies, tangerine horses and there, that beautiful luscious, flowing river of ice water, no, Pepsi! Yes, yes, it’s right there, so cold and so wet, and you raise that giant scallop shell full of liquid heaven to your lips and quench, quench…

And then the clock chimes in the other room and you wake up, realizing it was all just a dream and you are still dying of thirst. Okay, this is going to require real action. That beautiful river of Pepsi was just an illusion. I’m going to have to get up, get to the kitchen, and get myself a glass of water. It can’t really be that hard. As a matter of fact, it’s such a simple thing that I’m going to be able to actually do it. Pretty soon.

Now, a mission such as this one requires three things. The first thing is courage. Not because there is anything scary or inherently dangerous in your apartment between the bedroom and the kitchen. It requires courage because you know full well that everywhere outside of this little cocoon you have created for yourself, it is numbingly, bone-chillingly cold. Somehow, that microscopic little virus inside your body has managed to alter the very air around your body. Your skin will break out into goosebumps and you will begin shivering uncontrollably the moment you are exposed to the air outside your covers, despite the fact that the thermostat says 79° and the dog’s tongue is hanging out. So, you have to work up some courage, as if you were about to jump into a freezing river to save a drowning litter of kittens type of thing.

The second thing you need is a plan.

“Okay, so once I’m exposed to the cold outside and I’m upright, I know I’ve only got so much time. Two minutes, tops, before we reach system failure. Gotta plan this out right. Step one: gotta get the bathrobe. Where the hell is it? Back of the door. Holy shit, that’s like 3, 4 feet away from the bed. I could be exposed for 10, 20 seconds at a distance like that. That’s okay, I can do this. I just have to get out of the bed on the side closest to the door. Which way am I facing now? Fuck, this is so hard.” And so on.

And third, you need the strength to accomplish your goals.

“Alright. Got my plan. Time to move out. One. Two. Three. Hang on, just one more minute. One two three. Shit! Why can’t I move my arms?”

At this point, you realize that in the past few hours, or minutes, or seconds, or whatever unit of time it’s been, in your tossing and turning and rolling over in attempt after vain attempt to get comfortable, you have managed to roll yourself into a kind of human burrito and you have pinned your own arms to your sides. God, this is going to be even harder than you thought.

Eventually, though, with much effort and great resolve, you manage to extricate yourself from your percale prison. Sit upright, feet hit the floor, let’s do this thing.

“Oh my god it’s cold out here. Where are my glasses? Screw it, I don’t need to see anything. Bathrobe. OK. Got the bathrobe. Where the fuck do my arms go in this thing?” Three and a half minutes later you have finally managed to put your bathrobe on.

“So cold. The bathrobe helps. This hood is the best. I love this bathrobe so much. Now, to the kitchen. No need to raise my head, I know where the kitchen is. I wonder what time it is. I wonder what day it is. What am I doing again? Oh yeah, going to the kitchen. Wait, there’s the thermostat, what is the heat on? 82°? That can’t be right. I’m turning it up.”

“OK, heading to the kitchen. Must get vessel for water. Better use something plastic, my grip’s not the best right now. Can’t see a fucking thing, should have put my glasses on. There, that green blob, I think that’s a plastic cup.”

“Alright, got my cup. Water. Sweet, liquid, refreshing water. Inside fridge.”
At this point, you need to give yourself just one more little boost of courage, as you realize that opening the door to that refrigerator and sticking your face inside of it will be somewhat akin to running buck naked through a blast freezer.

“Oh my god I’m freezing. Fill, damn you! Fill that goddam cup!” And after an eternity of 5 seconds, the cup is finally full. Your goal is within your grasp. You raise that green blob up to your mouth and drink. As the water flows through your mouth, over your swollen tongue and down your parched throat, you can practically hear the little dehydrated cells in your body cry out in joy as they soak in that beautiful water and spring back to life like a dried out old kitchen sponge.

Sweet relief. Now, just fill the cup one more time. Five more seconds in the blast freezer. You can do this. You’re shivering and half the water is sloshing out of the cup onto the floor, but you could not possibly care less about that. Cup full. Back to bed.

Shivering, aching, functionally blind and semi-hallucinating, but fully hydrated, you shuffle your way back to the bedroom.

“I’m leaving the bathrobe on. That’s one less thing I’ll have to think about next time.”

You fall into bed, face first, pulling all your assorted bed sheets, comforters, blankets on top of you as you do, moaning half in pain and half in relief that you are back safe in your little sweat-filled cocoon. Just before you go back to sleep, you reach over and drain the green plastic cup on the nightstand, ensuring that the next time you wake up thirsty, you will have to repeat this entire process over again.

Elapsed time: two and a half hours.

“Oh, shit. Now I have to pee.”