I’m sick. Sick sick sick. I have a “cold,” which I put in quotes because the word “cold” does not do justice to my suffering, which is epic. Monumental. Exhausting. Phlegmy. My ears are clogged, so that the world takes on a distant, wrapped-in-cotton kind of feeling, like hangover fuzziness, but quieter. My nose is leaky. My chest is spasmodic. I sound like a drowning duck when I talk and an angry basset hound when I cough.

Eating is a chore, and not only because my clogged ears make chewing an unpleasant and deafening proposition, but because I am pretty sure I’m getting all of my daily caloric needs from the ever-present cough drop tucked between my cheek and gum. Eating food just doesn’t occur to me until some outside stimulus reminds me that, yeah, I should probably eat something. I guess. Let me finish my cough drop first.

The last time I was this sick was probably 2001 or 2002. The general symptomology was the same: onset with a ridiculous fever (this happened on Monday, and in my high-temperature state I got the idea that I really immediately needed to start live blogging Dancing with the Stars (which I had never even watched before Monday and only watched now because I couldn’t focus on anything else (as an aside: why is everybody on that show the same color orange?)), including the commercials. Lucky for us all, I loaned my laptop to a friend whose computer shit the bed a few months ago and we were all spared the feverish fruits of my delusional labor) followed by a week or so of incessant coughing and clogged up head and generally feeling like shit. I was also on Weight Watchers. And would you believe? I figured out the points for cough drops. And counted them.

You know what else? I got on the message boards at the Weight Watchers website to look for advice on how to stay on program when sick. Such tips included the points value for various cans of chicken soup and? Cough medicine.

Not a diet, you say? But a simple “lifestyle” change? Merely eat less, exercise more, and make sure that when you’re ill, you cut back on the food so you can make up for all the points your ingesting in medicine.

I still feel about as healthy as the floor of the Red Line at about 2 AM on a Friday night, but I could seriously give a rat’s ass how many points or carbs or calories or grams of fat my array of off brand cold remedies contain, and if I thought it would help me get through the day without coughing so hard I crack a vertebrae, I would eat a sugar-coated block of lard. Or, given how desperate I am to be over this nonsense, lick the floor of a 2 AM Red Line train (which would probably work to cure the cold because it would kill me outright). But even though I don’t feel good right now, I certainly feel better than I did when I was counting cough drop points.

UPDATE! I started experiencing stabbing head pain today before lunch and thought maybe I’d go visit my friendly neighborhood doctor. Wise decision, it turns out, as I have a fairly nasty ear infection. In both ears! I’m actually relieved, because it means there is something wrong with me and, being a veteran of adult ear infections, I know I’ll feel human in a couple of days once the antibiotics start doing their thang.

Speaking of, I’d better lay in a supply of yogurt. And since I’m not on WW, I’m totally getting the good stuff.