What Do I Do Now?

I learned something very important about myself after my crappy illness. I am a cranky after-sick person. Not that the whole 6-days-of-fever, can’t-move-a-muscle, vomiting, bloody-diarrhea, teeth-chattering chills, coughing-my-head-off wouldn’t make anyone cranky. It was the aftermath that made me cranky. The empty refrigerator. The piles of laundry. The dirty house. The piles of work. The to-do list that didn’t get to-done.

All of these things turned me into a very cranky person. So much so that I was huffy with the elderly at the grocery store. The Elderly! Usually I stop for at least one elderly person at the grocery store and help them read a label or find something on a shelf or in an aisle on the other side of the store. Not this time. I barreled through, cranky that their carts were in my way, that they were slow, that they went through the More Than 20 Items checkout line with four items in their carts.

I was even cranky with a couple that I had never even seen before so much so that I turned and left an aisle that I needed an item from just because they were in it. The source of my crankiness with them? Simply because earlier they were shopping for spaghetti sauce the same time I needed it.

And I think I figured out why I am so cranky. No matter how sick you are, life goes on. And all the well wishes and care providers and friends and family members can’t take care of your specific life duties. And, as soon as you are feeling a smidge better, you must get back on with life. No matter what a mess it is in. And when you are feeling like dirt that a dog just peed on, the last thing you want to do is clean up messes. Especially the messes that your 14-year old dog has left on your kitchen floor. Or the messes that your boys have left in the bathrooms. And when your gag reflex is working overtime, these unappealing jobs become even less appealing, and you find yourself longing for that fever to creep back up on you if only to postpone the cleaning for one more day.

So, why am I sharing all this? Because I am brilliant, that’s why! I have come up with the money making business to end all money making businesses. It is called (cue trumpets):



Some of the services I will offer include:

1. Cleaning your house while you’re sick so it doesn’t smell like something died in it.
2. Doing laundry for you while you’re sick so your kids’ clothes won’t walk to school without your kids inside of them.
3. Grocery shopping so the workers at McDonald’s don’t start buying your kids birthday gifts.
4. Preparing healthy, heat-and-serve meals with the items purchased from the grocery store so your husband’s cholesterol doesn’t merit a write up in a medical journal.
5. Running other errands, such as picking up dog food for your dog, going to the bank, buying that birthday present for your cousin or sister, or just anything else that you can’t handle while oozing fluids from all orifices of your body.

I’m still working out all of the details. I don’t want anyone to think that I am trying to take advantage of the sick. I know that, when I was at my sickest, and then even when I was well and cranky with the elderly at the grocery store, I would have paid good money to have avoided having to clean my house, or grocery shop, or catch up on the laundry. And I know my family would have appreciated it as well. When the boys started pulling out year-old teddy grahams from the bottom of the snack drawer, I knew we had hit rock bottom. I will also need lots of Lysol and gloves/masks or I will be sick non-stop. Then I’ll just be back to what started this whole thing to begin with, and that’s no good.