Sneezy Rider

Monday morning:After a brief dabbling into sidewalk ice-dancing, followed by a light bit of graffiti-scraping at the bus stop (whoever Coni is, he has clearly mistaken my bus stop for his), I found myself feeling my forehead with the back of my hand.
Am I feverish?
My head!My head is enormous!Was it this big when I left home this morning?And my ears – does anyone else hear that buzzing?And the eyeballs.What’s with my eyeballs?
I take out a compact, take a look.
Holy cow, did I look like this when I left the house?
And that’s when the coughing begins.And with each cough comes the explosions in my head – near the front, somewhere between knowing how to crochet and my scheme on how to notify someone that I am in distress (it involves holding and actually drinking a Bud Lite).
For decades, I have banked on the words of a blue-lidded dental hygienist.Palpating the glands on each side of my jaw, she had said, “You never get sick.”
And since that day, I have relied on her wise words.Do I get sick?I do not.And you want to know why?Because a dental hygienist in the 80s told me that I didn’t.
But here I am.With every cough, bits of my brain are hurtled toward the cranium, my eyes pop and water, my throat burns with indignity.
I never get sick.
Unless, of course, I do.
Send soup and foot rubs.