The Final “I’m Sick and Bitchy Post”…Promise

So, I want you to picture Cher in a darkened room without any makeup. Okay, now turn on the lights! What you are now gazing at in horror is the visual representation of how I feel. There’s sick and then there is this. So, I’ve spent most of my time when not teaching buried under blankets. Where’s a can of Campbell’s Chicken Soup when you need it? Oh yeah, lining supermarket shelves in countries that don’t only have shelf space for multiple noodles related concoctions. At least now I have a use for all that damn tissue paper they hawk my way outside of the train stations. I’ve learned that it is bad-manners to blow your nose in public in Japan. People gaze at you like you have just walked up to them, kicked them in the nuts and taken a dump in their wife’s purse. This is another one of those cultural no-no’s that I just can’t adhere too. Much like the notion of special slippers for various rooms in the house, the fact that I can’t hork a nose goblin or thirty into a tissue paper on a train platform doesn’t sit well with me. What am I supposed to do, drip? Isn’t that equally, if not even more rude, to spurt off like an unattended hose all over the seat cushions of the train? So I honk away anyway although I try to be more desecrate about it. It’s all pretty comedic, really, me there on the platform trying to hide the fact that I am blowing my nose. I duck behind pillars, wedge myself between some vending machines all in this strange dance of concealment. I’ve lost one of man’s fundamental rights: the right to spew a sticky substance from one’s nose at will wherever and whenever a person chooses to. I believe this is above The Right To Bear Arms in the U.S. Constitution.

I’ve shifted my lessons to a ground based attacked. Less motion but covering the same amount of ground. This is a tricky move to accomplish in a room full of ornery children. This is why I pepper the place with a slow working sedative in gas form before a begin. I heard there may be side effects but what can you do. What kid wouldn’t want a third eyeball anyway? Do Western kids laugh at sneezes? I don’t remember. I don’t recall finding anything humorous in a sneeze. The Japanese kids think it is the second coming of Pryor. It stops a lesson dead. One sneeze and the kids are in hysterics. I actually thought some of them might hyperventilate. “You alright? Are you sure because I don’t think a face naturally should be that color that you face is right now? What color is that anyway? I didn’t the human body could create the color teal. You can’t hold a sneeze in, though, or your head might explode like that kid from the LIFE cereal commercials. It’s nice to know that my illness can bring the funny. Along with less mobility I also have less patience. I think the kids can sense this as they have been treading lightly. Maybe my stern look, usually given with a hint of leniency, now says: “Sit down or I will go out, find a blender, purchase that blender, come back with the blender, plug in the blender, stuff your dog into the blender, hit the mix button and then afterwards as we sit there amongst the viscera and gore I will simply give you THE CHOICE!”

Only four more days until roughly three weeks of holidays. I’m hoping the body can repair itself by this time with the aid of a couple of kegs of orange juice and some nice, hot baths. In the interim I live in plague central with my collective of tissue paper around me, a mound of sheets and my little heater working overtime night in and night out. The cold apartment isn’t helping. Last night I woke up and was able to see my breath INSIDE! In my little top ten a few days back I should have added toilet seats so cold that you can stick them! They have these elaborate toilets here in Japan with ass warmers as well as the cheaper version which you can just plug into the wall. Now I see why. Sitting on a toilet seat without one is like popping your ass down onto a chunk of ice. Christmas in Japan at the moment isn’t very festive. Maybe if I just watch A Charlie Brown Christmas a dozen times I will exorcise the current Ebenezer in me. Wait, I think I need what every sick man needs when he is in this ungodly state: Muppets! Quick, into the Youtube-mobile!