Day 103
Well, it’s good news, bad news time.
The good news first: Mrs. Snowman is still blissfully silent with her cold.
The bad news: she’s given it to me.
Several million flu germs clearly decided there wasn’t enough room in her oesophagus to raise their families and searched the regional housing market for another place to bed down. They quickly found new lodgings in me.
The main problem when I get any kind of flu is that it quickly transforms into catarrh. Although I’ve noted in earlier entries the effects of this particularly repulsive ailment, I will let you know one even more disgusting side effect that happened earlier today.
Mother-in-law had returned home early and was clattering around in the kitchen when I trudged downstairs from my sick bed to get a drink.
The usual one-way conversation followed (“…you’re not ill, pull yourself together, don’t be such a baby, etc.”) when I gave out a very violent cough. It was one of those coughs that start with a huge intake of breath, rockets up from your buttocks and leaves tears in your eyes.
Luckily, mother-in-law had turned her head to fiddle with something in the sink.
Unluckily, it provided a perfect three-quarter-view target.
A large globule of phlegm shot out of my mouth like a tracer bullet and made impact about two inches above her left ear.
I suppose I should be thankful that she has a skull like the armour plating around the gun turret of a Russian tank and didn’t feel it but it left me with something of a dilemma.
Do I run back upstairs and not say anything or do I run the risk of hospitalisation and tell her I’m responsible for depositing a huge lump of snot in her hair?
I opted for the safest route…a hastily constructed lie.
Knowing that she’d returned from work on the bus which is usually full of screaming children and farting pensioners, it would be reasonable to assume that some of these people would also be suffering from the same kind of cold.
I casually enquired about her journey home and was relieved to discover that several people were indeed coughing and spluttering in her vicinity before I dropped the bad news.
“Er…I think someone’s gobbed on your head”
A quick probe with her fingers confirmed my observation and with a squealed “Eughh! Dirty bitch”, she ran off to the bathroom to stick herself under the shower.
I’ve pinned a photograph of Paris Hilton the front of the wardrobe so that if it happens again at least I’ll have honed my targeting skills to a degree where I can fire it safely behind the sofa from twenty yards.
It’s only a shame these targeting skills couldn’t have been focused on the poker tables today. Three tournaments were entered with the results spiraling downwards from crap to very crap and onwards to catastrophically crap.
The first of these was compounded by Mrs. Snowman who “took over from me” while I made a quick trip to the toilet. My chip count was about average when I left and zero when I returned. She explained that she was “chasing a straight” and “only missed it by two cards”. Give me strength.
I refused to let her anywhere near the laptop for the second game and fucked it up completely unaided but at least I went out with a straight against a full house. The third game saw me battle against 12,000 other participants for more than four hours before the inevitable shadow of elimination was cast over me. It was a satellite event with 99 players going through to the larger cash tournament. I missed it by 14 places and woke up Small Child by screaming at the laptop after losing to an over pair on the river.
I learned another interesting fact today that I thought should be brought to your attention; apparently it’s an accurate story.
Back in the 1980’s when Mitsubishi were in the process of introducing a new model to the American market, one of the Japanese executives made a telephone call to their US marketing division explaining the name of their new vehicle.
It was a bold and masculine title that would stir the wallets of American man…the “Stallion”. Unfortunately when it was phonetically noted down, the US employee wrote exactly what he heard from the thickly accented English on the other end of the line and drivers found themselves zooming around in…the Starion.
…Marverus.
Starting bank: $0
Current bank: $2.46
The good news first: Mrs. Snowman is still blissfully silent with her cold.
The bad news: she’s given it to me.
Several million flu germs clearly decided there wasn’t enough room in her oesophagus to raise their families and searched the regional housing market for another place to bed down. They quickly found new lodgings in me.
The main problem when I get any kind of flu is that it quickly transforms into catarrh. Although I’ve noted in earlier entries the effects of this particularly repulsive ailment, I will let you know one even more disgusting side effect that happened earlier today.
Mother-in-law had returned home early and was clattering around in the kitchen when I trudged downstairs from my sick bed to get a drink.
The usual one-way conversation followed (“…you’re not ill, pull yourself together, don’t be such a baby, etc.”) when I gave out a very violent cough. It was one of those coughs that start with a huge intake of breath, rockets up from your buttocks and leaves tears in your eyes.
Luckily, mother-in-law had turned her head to fiddle with something in the sink.
Unluckily, it provided a perfect three-quarter-view target.
A large globule of phlegm shot out of my mouth like a tracer bullet and made impact about two inches above her left ear.
I suppose I should be thankful that she has a skull like the armour plating around the gun turret of a Russian tank and didn’t feel it but it left me with something of a dilemma.
Do I run back upstairs and not say anything or do I run the risk of hospitalisation and tell her I’m responsible for depositing a huge lump of snot in her hair?
I opted for the safest route…a hastily constructed lie.
Knowing that she’d returned from work on the bus which is usually full of screaming children and farting pensioners, it would be reasonable to assume that some of these people would also be suffering from the same kind of cold.
I casually enquired about her journey home and was relieved to discover that several people were indeed coughing and spluttering in her vicinity before I dropped the bad news.
“Er…I think someone’s gobbed on your head”
A quick probe with her fingers confirmed my observation and with a squealed “Eughh! Dirty bitch”, she ran off to the bathroom to stick herself under the shower.
I’ve pinned a photograph of Paris Hilton the front of the wardrobe so that if it happens again at least I’ll have honed my targeting skills to a degree where I can fire it safely behind the sofa from twenty yards.
It’s only a shame these targeting skills couldn’t have been focused on the poker tables today. Three tournaments were entered with the results spiraling downwards from crap to very crap and onwards to catastrophically crap.
The first of these was compounded by Mrs. Snowman who “took over from me” while I made a quick trip to the toilet. My chip count was about average when I left and zero when I returned. She explained that she was “chasing a straight” and “only missed it by two cards”. Give me strength.
I refused to let her anywhere near the laptop for the second game and fucked it up completely unaided but at least I went out with a straight against a full house. The third game saw me battle against 12,000 other participants for more than four hours before the inevitable shadow of elimination was cast over me. It was a satellite event with 99 players going through to the larger cash tournament. I missed it by 14 places and woke up Small Child by screaming at the laptop after losing to an over pair on the river.
I learned another interesting fact today that I thought should be brought to your attention; apparently it’s an accurate story.
Back in the 1980’s when Mitsubishi were in the process of introducing a new model to the American market, one of the Japanese executives made a telephone call to their US marketing division explaining the name of their new vehicle.
It was a bold and masculine title that would stir the wallets of American man…the “Stallion”. Unfortunately when it was phonetically noted down, the US employee wrote exactly what he heard from the thickly accented English on the other end of the line and drivers found themselves zooming around in…the Starion.
…Marverus.
Starting bank: $0
Current bank: $2.46