I'm Not Sick But I'm Not Well

....except I am sick, but I wouldn't be able to reference a song I like then.

Some evidence of said sickness.  I would take a picture, but my appearance might offend some sensitive viewers.

Got sent home from work yesterday.  Never been sent home in the middle of the day during this job before. My guts have been conspiring against me since the weekend in a way that's best described as severe crampy bastard butterflies from Hell.

Until yesterday, all they had done was put me off my food, which meant I could afford more things. I love things. Hurrah for things. And stuff too.  But somewhere around my morning break, my body decided that to jazz up my working day, I required a headache, the shakes and intermittent dry heaving.

Evidently, my body has shit for brains.

Anyway, my manager clocked my sudden decline into pasty, clammy pre-barf mode and asked if I wanted to go home,  at which I bravely welled up and squeaked out a "no!"  Which is wimp for "yes, but I don't want you to think I'm being dramatic, and I don't want to let anyone down."

Fortunately, said manager is a surprisingly skillful mind reader, and he sent me packing anyway.  

It's now the following day, and I'm still on the sofa, dolefully gagging into a cup of tea.  And I've got to thinking that school-age me would be loving this.  If you have a sick day and you're still in school uniform, it is both a nightmare and a treat.  I recall thinking at the age of 11 

"Yay, my tonsils are so big that I might choke on them! I can't wait for the doctors to cut them out of my throat with a sharp knife so I can have a week off school!  AND I've heard that I get to eat ice cream for breakfast for a few days after! Score!!"

The only part of that attitude that remains with me to this day is the feeling that if food is the outcome, then whatever it is I have to do to obtain it is SO worth it.

So. Because I have nothing to do bar make noises like a poorly skilled beat boxer, I've compiled a short list if why being school-age sick is a much, much sweeter deal than being grown-up sick:

- Mum: This goes straight to the top of the list!  Deep down, all everyone wants out of life is to

be confined to the sofa under a mountain of quilts, in front of a selection of their favourite films while the person who already spends most of her time raising you pumps you full of attention, affection, Lucozade and chicken soup.

To this day, I can't even smell Lucozade without feeling instantly green in the gills, but allowing myself to be completely and wholly pathetic because mum's got this shit covered is something I remember fondly.

- Freedom!!: No responsibility, no early mornings, no to-ing and fro-ing between classes and no being forced to answer questions in German whilst Mrs Wesner throws Pedro the stuffed monkey at your head.  That's not code for anything. She actually threw a monkey at us and made us give her directions to the station and list all the family members we had.

Sure, you might get a bit more homework, but you know that once you've sweated whatever plague you've caught out in front of several viewings of Casper The Friendly Ghost, your friends will be waiting to accept you back into the fold.  Maybe even take a couple of monkeys to the face for you until you're feeling 100%.

But my reaction as an adult (in body at least) in full time employment? 

"Guiiiiiiilt!!! Already let everyone down! Someone's doing my work as well as theirs! I'm a terrible person! I can't afford to be off work anyway! Daytime TV sucks! Horrible, selfish Becky for being ill! Work's going to be busy today and it's going to be all my fault! Guilt, guilt, GUIIIIIIIIILT-AH!"

- Appearace: Ilness isn't supposed to be attractive, I know.  This is why, when we're perfectly fine and dandy, when someone has the gall to ask us if we're okay because we don't look very well, the only response that springs to mind is a swift punch to the throat.

When you're little, it's sort-of cute to be all helpless and pale. Sniffly and snotty.  It elicits sympathy in the clan elders.  Nowadays, if anyone were to see me perspiring on the sofa, mouth agog, fringe both pasted to my face and pointing to the heavens as I gag, I wouldn't be surprised at a quick retreat as they make the sign of the cross over and over to protect themselves from whatever demon has me in its clutches.

Well.  I'm off to feel sorry for myself and hope that Beelzebub gets bored of reruns of terrible American sitcoms and flees my body.  Wish me luck!

I AM LUCIFEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!!!!! *projectile vomits*

Je Suis En Retard

Ooh! I forgot to tell you about my Frenchman experience from the other night, didn't I? It's not nearly as funny or risqué as it sounds, especially when I refer to it as "The Frenchman Experience", but I feel we've bonded, my anonymous Internet peepsters, so that means that you are now subject to my every waking thought. Until you stop reading, anyway.

Please don't stop reading me! I love you! I can change!!

As a reminder to write about The Experience, I've been walking around all day with the word "French" scrawled on my arm. That in itself amused me. I found myself wondering what people would think if I suddenly died on my way home, and when they found me I would just have this word and no other explanation on my body. Would they think that I'd decided to take up learning the language of luuuurve, several years after taking my GCSE in it and immediately forgetting most of what I'd learned? Maybe they'd see it as a request for a French themed funeral. I hoped for the latter. They could serve everyone baguettes, and all my friends and family could mourn me in kicky little berets and drawn on curly moustaches....sigh. I might go home with the word French written on me every day now. Just incase.

So, The Frenchman Experience... Anyone who's ever learned French in school and not bothered to take it any further that that knows that the sentences they teach you are pretty much totally useless, unless you are in very specific situations. Here are some of the scant sentences I recall from my teens (nobody is allowed to pick these apart - accuracy unlikely here):

- Je suis maladroit: I am clumsy (actually, forget that one. Quite useful).

- Je porter mons pantalons: I wear my trousers. When will I ever need to tell a French person I'm wearing my trousers? This should be a given, shouldn't it? If you have to inform people that you are wearing trousers, then maybe you need to re evaluate your life...

- Ou est la gare?: where is the train station? I don't intend to get lost in France anytime soon, so doubt I'll require this one.

My personal favourite by far, though is "Je suis en retard" - "I am late". Not especially funny, but when you're twelve, and your classmate is being forced by the teacher (who knows what she's doing, she knows!) to tell the class that they are sorry that they are "retard", nothing is funnier.

But, but! On Monday night, I actually got one of these phrases used at me! I had the opportunity to communicate in basic French! I was traipsing down the dark, creepy alley between the gym and my car, behind a lanky and unthreatening looking gentleman with a backpack. In a world of my own, probably fantasising about food (note: I'm never not fantasising about food), I very nearly had a coronary when my tall fellow perambulator suddenly stopped and whirled around to look directly at me. I had such a fright that I didn't hear what he'd said.

"S-sorry?" He smiled, amused at my baffled lady-shock of been suddenly turned on in a dark alley.

"Ou est" he repeated amicably "la gare?"

YES!! I knew this one! I understood what a French guy was saying! And I knew where the train station was. Today was a good day! I beamed at him triumphantly.

And then remembered that I don't know the response to that question in French. Only how to ask it. Trying not to let my inner turmoil show, I continued manically grinning and gestured dramatically up the street we'd just turned off. I think it was my visual equivalent of that speaking in English VERY LOUDLY AND SLOOOWLY that us Brits like to employ when faced with foreign language speakers.

I've never seen a person move so quickly. I didn't even get a "merci". Spose I'd do the same thing in his shoes, if I'd asked him a sensible question and just got mad grinning and flapping in response. Ce'st la vie.