Happiness is a warm cold.

Whenever I get sick, I am reminded of the best time I ever had being sick—on our honeymoon. It’s made being sick something romantic for me and for us. Today, I woke up with a sore throat. Sore enough that I suspected I was ripe with infection and only hours away from infecting the whole cube farm at work. My nose started to run in the simplest way to where I knew it would grow into something much more substantial. This was the beginning of the end for me. Remove the dramatics, and it turns out I will not die (most likely), but work was out of the question. For the safety of my co-workers, I sucked it up and took one for the team. I slept all day in a fever with my trusty cat Bonita stuck to my side and working as the best kind of feline heater on the right side of my body. Good cat. Awesome warmth.

Mr. Husband fed Thera-Flu to me before he left for work, braving the work day without his trusty companion and forced to fend for himself at lunch. Somehow he survives and is now looking through a picture book of Scotland with the Loaner Son downstairs. They were looking at Van Gogh books, but the Loaner Son decided that Vincent scared him. Well, ok, Vincent was depressed. I can see how the swirl of life, disappointment, and high intensity at all times can scare an almost three-year-old. The Loaner Son will be three years old in three weeks. Maybe when he’s five-years-old he’ll be ready for Van Gogh? I remember when they brought Van Gogh to Highland Elementary from the Toledo Museum of Art. I fell in love that day as someone’s mom
told us about the ear and the sadness and the never being appreciated until post mortem. I loved him then. I still do.

While I’m sick, I am exiled to upstairs. I sit all wrapped up watching TV without TiVo and suffer through my runny nose. I remember how being sick often doesn’t stop me. We knew when we left for Scotland on November 4th, 2007 that Mr. Husband was going to be sick. He had the beginning of a sore throat. So we packed Thera-Flu and promised each other that being sick would not ruin our honeymoon. No way. Thank goodness for Scottish beer and whiskey. With the happy combination of these wonderful liquids and Thera-Flu and some other Scottish cold drugs we found at the local Tesco, we were able to keep running every day. We would come back to our chalet every afternoon and nap for an hour or so, but we didn’t stop. We ran the entire time. We walked the little villages that we stayed in, Coylumbridge and Aviemore, from end to
end each day, discovering strangers. We became known to some as “the newlyweds.” We were cute and in love and knew that we were sending out infectious beams of happiness to everyone around us. It kept us going. We never stopped laughing and we learned that in Scotland, you don’t use an umbrella—you simply walk in the rain.

My mother taught me to run between the raindrops. Rain was always the enemy. Rain will ruin a good hair day. Rain will make it difficult to drive and arrive to a location in a timely manner. In Scotland, rain is a blessing from heaven. Surprisingly, in November, it wasn’t that cold in The Highlands. We didn’t worry about the rain. We embraced the rain. We walked around for hours in the rain, feeding our colds. We embraced our colds and fought off the desire to lay down and sleep for a thousand years. We did a really good job, too. From the photos, you’d never know that our pockets were stuffed with snotty tissues. It’s amazing what adding a fresh draft beer from the hills of Scotland will do to a cold. Knocks it right out. Or maybe it combined with the cold and gave us super strength. It was the best week of our lives—and the cold didn’t have a chance.

When we arrived home from our honeymoon, we let the cold have her merry day. We fell down. We were sicker than sick-sick. We were super sick. We went to see our family physician, the wonderful Dr. Licthy, and he prescribed awesome drugs for us that helped us get rid of the nasty Scotland cough and sleep out the illness. We got to be home from work sick together for another week. Best honeymoon ever. Being sick together will always be romantic for us. Mr. Husband makes me Thera-Flu and lectures me on staying in bed. He brings me Kleenex with lotion so my tender nose doesn’t hurt. He tucks me in. And I let him.

One of the best gifts in the world is having someone to take care of you when you’re sick. For this alone, marriage rocks. It is marriage perk #529. It is the special care perk. It keeps us warm. It's like so better than stupid chicken soup.