Planet flu

Last Thursday at 3:30 in the afternoon, I lifted off.

“Ground control to Major Tom”.

“But, I didn’t sign up for this”, I replied.

“Take your protein pills and put your helmet on”.

And so, I’ve been floating in my tin can. Or on the can. And, there was nothing I could do.

I didn’t leave the house for 5 days. I missed the Earth so much. I missed my wife. It was 75 degrees outside. But in fact, I was cold as hell.

How does some invisible organism cause so much agony?

I Googled “how much snot can the body produce”, and I have some new information for them.

It felt like the worst red wine hangover in history whilst climbing Mt. Everest. My hair hurt. Couldn’t breathe. Just wanted to sleep . . .

Waterboarding may or may not be torture. The flu damn sure is.

That’s it. Let’s put those terrorists in a second grade classroom. Let them experience the exquisite awfulness of flu, head lice, and A.D.D. that they are sure to catch. After that, they will be pointing out bin Laden’s location on Twitter and will call al Zawahiri on his iPhone in Monaco.

“al”, they’ll say. “It is over. The great Satan is not the United States. It is Orthomyxoviridae”.

After five days worth of bed head, I did look like Ziggy Stardust. But unlike Major Tom, I did get to return to Planet Earth. And it is blue. And green. And beautiful.

Goodbye planet flu. It was a very lonely trip. And yes, you can see Uranus from there.