I came down with a cold last night while I was at work.
It was me and the sports editor most of the evening. I sneezed. And sneezed again. (The sports editor just kept talking to some coach over the phone.) I read over pages and tried explaining the corrections to the page designer by phone, as usual. However, this conversation when something like this:
Me: “OK, I’ve got corrections for you on A1 and A8.”
Designer: “All right, give me two shakes of a leg to open this thing up.”
(pause)
Me: “Ok. In the hoops skybox, where it says Boys and Girls in Actions, can you take the S off of Actions, make it… not plural? I mean singular?”
Designer: “Gotcha. Next?”
Me: “OK, now there needs to be a line around the picture. I mean a box. A border?”
Designer: “Got it fixed.”
Me: “OK, now there’s some weirdness going on with the… byline! the byline for the holiday cheer article. It’s what, too far to the right. I mean left.”
Designer: “I see it. Yeah somebody broke the styles or something. I caught all the rest of them.”
Me: “OK, next at the end of that article. In the jump line. It needs to say page A1. I mean A8. It says A1 now.”
Designer: “Got it.”
Me: “OK, now for page A8…. oh, wait, nope, there’s nothing on A8. It’s good.”
Designer: “OK, I think there’s something missing now that I look at it.”
Me: “Um, I don’t see it.”
Designer: “It’s something big.”
Me: “I give up.”
Designer: “The vertical rule between the stories.”
Me: *mentally smacking forehead* “I see it now. Thanks for catching that. My brain’s not working tonight.”
So, having established to the designer that I was clearly lacking sleep, mental capacity or both, I went home sniffling.
A suppertime orange and cup of tea had held me together for part of the night, but by 11:30 p.m. I was good to be able to drive home, my head was so clouded. My nose felt like it had grown to twice its size and was taking over my ears. So I went straight to sleep… or tried.
12:30 a.m. My neck feels swollen. And my nose is severely clogged. Vix to the rescue!
2:55 a.m. Well, Vix didn’t quite rescue me. Time for the cold medicine.
That’s when I discovered that my box of daytime and nighttime cold medicine gel tablets had expired five months ago. I distinctly remember buying them. It couldn’t have been so long ago as that implies! Also, being slightly muddled by lack of sleep/sniffly sinuses, I decided to take the medicine anyway. And soon went almost-peacefully to sleep.
My sister the nurse assures me that though medicines typically lose their efficacy after the expiration date, the alcohol in the nighttime cold medicine likely did not.
It was past 8:30 when I woke up the first time this morning and was still quite tired. I woke up again around 11:15 a.m. and made myself some chicken noodle soup, then listened to a Tim Keller sermon. I didn’t get up for real until 2:30 p.m.
When I did get up, it was merely to loaf around the living room trying not to overextend myself in my ill state. I don’t actually remember what I did. A good portion was spent talking to my sister on the phone, I think. Also Facebook. And finding more kleenex.
The sad thing was, it was Sunday and I couldn’t go to church for fear of infecting the general populace. So I’ve been holed up here in my living room for most of my waking hours. It has led to some rather funny Facebook commentary. Ironically, the comments strayed to discussing the order in which to blow your nose and wipe your eyes… but without any reference to my current physical state.
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