Tuesday
November 5, 2002
Growing A Conscience
miles to go: 199.47 [YTD: 1,802.53]

"Stop it," David says, standing in the middle of the living room, knotting his tie. "You have nothing to feel guilty about."

I am curled up on the sofa, mummy-wrapped in blankets, awash in misery ... a sick sweaty lump of guilt and worry and Vicks VapoRub. Easy for him to say, I'm thinking. I keep hearing Jolene's crestfallen voice replaying itself in my head, over and over again. [Why the hell did I call her at HOME this morning?? Why didn't I just leave another nice safe chickenshidt voicemail message for her at the office, like yesterday? Why the sudden need to make actual voice-to-voice contact?] "You didn't hear the way she sounded on the phone," I tell him, dejectedly. "She sounded like I'm totally letting her down." And I aim the Chloraseptic bottle down my throat, finger on the trigger, and give it another listless squeeze.

"You feel guilty," David says knowingly, "because you're growing a conscience."

Ah, yes. A conscience. This is supposed to make me feel better, I'm sure. Growing A Conscience [along with Growing A Marriage, Growing A Retirement Plan, Growing A Rock-Hard Set Of Thigh Muscles] is a very big deal to David ... a benchmark of sobriety, a sign of increasing maturity, proof of evolving personal responsibility, blah blah blah blah. But right now it actually doesn't make me feel better at all. In my crabby, guilt-addled state of mind this morning, in fact, it just makes me feel crabbier and more guilt-addled. There are situations, I've learned, when a conscience is more trouble than it's worth ... and this is definitely one of those situations. Hearing my boss' voice on the phone just now -- hearing the irritation and resignation in her voice, as she realized she was going to have to handle both her job AND mine, for the second day in a row -- made me feel a bazillion times worse than possible/potential/almost strep throat ever could.

And that's sucking all the fun out of being sick, frankly.

Maybe it's because I don't feel sick enough today. Yesterday, yes. Yesterday, no question. Yesterday was a bona fide "Get Out Of Work Free" Day. Calling in sick was not only the right thing to do, I'm sure that if I hadn't called in -- if I'd gone into The Dirt Company and attempted to blow *snot molecules* all over everybody, the way The Main Marketing Guy and The Main Nerdy Geotech Guy did all last week -- they would have packed me onto the freight elevator and sent me home faster than you can say Anticipated Soil Movement Calculations. But this morning my fever has broken. When I took my temperature a few minutes ago, the electronic thermometer registered a nice optimistic 99.4º, as opposed to yesterday's volcanic 103º. I'm not seeing little gray dots swimming around in front of my eyes today, everywhere I look. My throat no longer feels as though it's lined with Gillette Sensor Excel Twin-Blades when I swallow: today, it's more like a thin itchy layer of St. Ives Apricot Scrub. I'm even experiencing a couple of microscopic hunger pangs this morning, for the first time since Saturday: I'm thinking that a small bowl of runny oatmeal might not, in fact, send me scrambling for porcelain. In short: I'm on the mend. I don't feel 100% restored to health, mind you ... but I don't feel horrible, either. I'm pretty sure that with a little effort -- and a whole lot of Contac Severe Cold & Flu Formula -- I could have made it into the office today, no sweat.

As long as I didn't ... you know ... try to do anything too strenuous. Like breathing. Or blinking. Or working.

Sigh.

Whatever happened to those carefree, conscience-optional days of my youth -- or those carefree, conscience-optional days of my younger middle-age, anyway -- when calling in and taking a sick day [whether I was actually sick or not] was as natural and as uncomplicated as keeping an open split of Cook's in my bottom desk drawer on Friday afternoons? When did it all become this big stoopid moral dilemma, anyway? It was so much easier to let people down when I didn't care about letting them down.

A few minutes later, David kisses me goodbye as he leaves for his office -- a chaste, germ-avoiding peck on the cheek -- and tells me to 'enjoy myself.'

'Enjoy myself.' Hah. Fat chance. How am I supposed to 'enjoy myself' when I know that Jolene will probably be cursing my name, every time she answers the phone today? Enjoying myself is out of the question. Mainly I'm going to gargle orange juice and cruise on cold meds for ten hours ... just like I did yesterday. [Although I might cut the dosage in half, today, so I'm not quite as useless and stoopid by the time David gets home from work. We've got to go vote tonight -- more of that Growing A Conscience stuff -- and I'll need every available working brain cell while I'm standing in the voting booth, flipping my coin.] I'll probably spend some time sitting in front of the computer today, at some point. I doubt that I'll accomplish anything noteworthy -- like the world needs another scintillating *FootNotes* entry all about me being SICK again, forcryingoutloud -- but I can at least catch up on The Bleat and The BOOBS and Television Without Pity. If I hear from EdmundKaz or Matt Lauer or my cousin Chellaigne, finally, I might blow their minds and answer their e-mail the actual same day I receive it. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, I'll probably curl up on the sofa and watch a bit of mindless daytime tube. [Or maybe I'll eschew the idiot boxes altogether and finish reading the memoir du jour: "Bye Bye Baby: My Tragic Love Affair With The Bay City Rollers" by Caroline Sullivan.] As long as I'm home anyway -- and as long as I'm no longer filling in as Death's doormat -- I might as well do something productive. I could sort the dirty laundry, or wash the breakfast dishes, or whip up something interesting for dinner. I think I've got everything I need to make a semi-edible spaghetti sauce: all I have to do is toss everything into the crockpot and let it simmer all afternoon. And if all else fails -- if I actually run out of things to do, or [more likely] energy to do them with -- I can always wander into the bedroom and take another long drooling *utility nap.*

But 'enjoy myself'? I don't see how that's possible. Basically this day will be ten hours of solitude, rest, relaxation, quiet productivity, civic duty, careful self-medication and blatant self-indulgence.

And I'm going to hate every minute of it.

in memory of marcella degrasse
[aunt marcie]


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