Sick and the City

I apologize for not blogging much recently, but it’s because I am SICK! I have been sick 6 times since January. For those of you counting, that is almost once a month. I know I complain about New York as the worst place to live, and sometimes I am exaggerating, but when you’re sick, it REALLY is the worst place.

Let’s start with the obvious: tissues. How do you carry them? I used to keep a box in my car, but obviously that is not an option. You know we have all had days where grabbing 3 or 4 individual tissues is just not going to cut it, but carrying around an entire box on the subway seems excessive. Or is it? I’ve taken to carrying a roll of very super soft toilet paper. Always triple-ply. It’s more totable, it’s cheaper, AND there’s a lot of paper on there.

Which brings me to my next point – what do you do with this plethora of tissues once used? It’s not like a trash can is available on every subway car. Do you stuff them in your bag to make all your other things gross, and then hope you remember to trash them when you exit the train? Do you hold them in your hand until you get off? First of all, ew. Second of all, you need that hand to hold on to the subway pole! Come to think of it, maybe this is why I’m getting sick all the time. All of these gross New Yorkers’ tissue hands on the poles. I have seen old ladies only touch the pole with tissues, but again, this seems excessive. Also, I’ve probably used up all my tissues by that point. Then again, those old ladies with medical masks, holding on to the pole with a tissue every day aren’t the ones snotting all over the place every month (how’s THAT visual?) Maybe they’re on to something.

Phase two of sickness: major coughing. This presents another problem in New York. Namely, everyone assumes you have The Plague, yet there’s absolutely nothing you can do about standing in extremely close proximity to people at all times. Taking the subway to the doctor, waiting in line for matzah ball soup (the Jewish penicillin), there’s no getting away. I remember being sick back during the Ebola epidemic. I coughed once in the subway, and the subway car cleared out as if it had no AC. I had the whole thing to myself! There’s the silver lining. People run from you.

But the worst part of being sick in New York by far is just getting around. You know those days when your muscles are failing you and it feels like you just did CrossFit but really all you did was roll out of bed to the bathroom? Well imagine having that feeling but still having to walk 7 blocks to the subway, then do multiple flights of stairs. WOOF.

Here’s hoping I get better soon. Long Legs Sick City signing off. I will now go buy stock in Kleenex. Or Charmin. And I’ll leave you with my favorite poem of all time, Sick, by Shel Silverstein.

“I cannot go to school today,”

Said little Peggy Ann McKay.

“I have the measles and the mumps,

A gash, a rash and purple bumps.

My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,

I’m going blind in my right eye.

My tonsils are as big as rocks,

I’ve counted sixteen chicken pox

And there’s one more—that’s seventeen,

And don’t you think my face looks green?

My leg is cut—my eyes are blue—

It might be instamatic flu.

I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,

I’m sure that my left leg is broke—

My hip hurts when I move my chin,

My belly button’s caving in,

My back is wrenched, my ankle’s sprained,

My ‘pendix pains each time it rains.

My nose is cold, my toes are numb.

I have a sliver in my thumb.

My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,

I hardly whisper when I speak.

My tongue is filling up my mouth,

I think my hair is falling out.

My elbow’s bent, my spine ain’t straight,

My temperature is one-o-eight.

My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,

There is a hole inside my ear.

I have a hangnail, and my heart is—what?

What’s that? What’s that you say?

You say today is. . .Saturday?

G’bye, I’m going out to play!”