Rip Van Winklefest 2011

I've brought myself back from the throes of death long enough to blog. (Ah, technology.) (And dramaticness. I guess I'm not really dying...the doctor probably would've written that on the diagnosis sheet...but I am awful.)

I don't have health insurance. In fact, the day I went to the ER was the midpoint of my first year with my employer. I am not yet full time but have twice interviewed for a full time position (and haven't gotten it yet.) so I do not have health insurance or paid sick time. (Just 6 more months and I can get sick...even if I'm still part time!) Despite the catastrophic effects of going out yesterday to the store (I'm leaving them out of the blog for your sake...and really, for humanities sake. If people start blogging about their lives with that much commitment to the truth...and people start reading it...I'm pretty sure that that's one of the signs of the apocalypse.) I was feeling terribly guilty about not going to work this week. (And stressed! You know, with the whole "No making of the money" thing.)

As I sat, I began to wonder if I shouldn't just suck it up and go back to work. I'm still having sporadic fevers, but I could just up the ibuprofen intake, right? My throat still hurt, but, by golly, I still had a bit more hydrocodone! That'll smooth that over nicely. I didn't know how long I could be upright but standing would probably be good for the congestion. Right?

That's when my face broke out in blisters.

Initially, I thought I'd accidentally bitten the tip of my tongue at some point. But then more appeared, on my gums, my lips, my cheeks. Then more, on my nose, my scalp, my eyelids. They're small and red and very painful and have made my face look a little deformed. I can't go to work like this! Also, it occurred to me that I probably have leprosy or something. So, despite being uninsured, I realize that I really need to go back to the doctor to have this leprosy looked at. (Or measles. It occurred to me I might also have measles.)

I went to one of those urgent care clinics where if you pay a large amount of money they will see you and pretend to care whether or not you die. I brought the paperwork from my ER discharge with me ("Virus-Not Otherwise Specified. Myalgia-Not Otherwise Specified." Now that's thousands of dollars well spent. You don't get thorough diagnostics like that for nothing.) and the face blisters, of course, because there's no leaving them anywhere. As I sat there slumped against the wall, staring at the doctor, my eyes different sizes due to the blistery swollen eyelid, he informed me that there are many viruses and there's no telling what they are unless we mail them to the CDC (WHAT?) and that I still have a virus just like I did several days ago and it may take me up to three weeks to recover. Oh yes, I just paid a hundred dollars for that.

So I came back home and slept, trying to figure out how to call my work and tell them I still have an unnamed virus (The nurse was like "Have you ever had this before?" and I was like "I don't know what I have, they just called it "a virus"." and she was like "That is what you have, a virus. There are many viruses out there." and I was like "Ok, well, yes, I guess I've had a virus at some point prior to this in my life."). I don't ever recall being told, however, that I have "A Virus". I know I haven't been Crazy Blisterface before but apparently that's just one small symptom in a long list of things that indicate I have "A Virus."

So, I'm off, for an entire week from work. No pay. And this is no vacation. The last time I was off and well, I spent the entire day folding laundry. I know you're chuckling to yourself about my hyperbole right now, but no, it's true, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., all I did was wash and fold and put away laundry. I took a picture because you're not going to believe this.

See? Before this, it was all piled on the couch and I had to fold and put it away so we could have a couch again. But what about this? What if we had two couches? A laundry couch and a people couch. And the laundry couch was supposed to have laundry on it. Maybe even fabric softener could somehow be built into the construction of the couch, or perhaps woven into the upholstery (because sometimes clothes get wrinkled after hanging out on the laundry couch for awhile). And like, when people come over to your house, it's not a sign of you living like a slob that there is laundry all over your couch. It's supposed to be there. (At least, it's supposed to be on the laundry couch. If you've got laundry on your people couch, you've gotta get with the times.) Why do we not have this? Because it seems to me that if we can put a man on the moon and we can have iPhones, that we should be able to not have to fold laundry any more.

My idea is so wondrously simple that I imagine it's already been thought of and subsequently shot down by the chest of drawers manufacturers. They probably don't want word of it getting out because then they'd be out of business. I wonder if they'll try to have my blog taken down. But, hey, chest of drawers manufacturers. There's room for all of us in this wonderful, new, folding laundry free world. You could be the first designers of the laundry couch.