Sick - Part 2

I am, by all means, the typically man when I am sick.  I am grumpy, demanding and overall a little whiney.  Many of you may say that this is my personality when I am feeling great and, well, you may be right, but being sick, like performance enhancers for athletes, elevates these traits to new, and sometimes frightening levels. 

I think this video illustrates about what I speak:

Man Cold

(you have to wait through an advertisement, sorry) 

When I am sick, I like to stay in bed or sprawl out on the coach, moan about how I am on the edge of death (which I actually believe at the time) and eat warm chicken noodle soup brought to me when I call for it.  For 12 years, my wife has patiently and diligently put up with this adolescent behavior.  Luckily for her, I am not prone to sickness… until India. 

In India, the problem is that when one of us gets sick, we are both usually sick.  The solution in India is that we have a staff of people who now must put up with my shenanigans.  Usually, though, even when we are both sick, my wonderful wife is the one organization the staff to care for both of us.

Now that she is in Minneapolis, I have had to take on the adult responsibility of barking orders to the cook and instituting menu changes to things like soup.  In my weakened state, so close to death, this can be very taxing.  Luckily and apparently, Indian men are even worse than western men, so she is dialed in on the fact that I am to be treated like a spoiled 7 year old. 

Yesterday, though, when I arrived back from the clinic, Veena, the cook, was nowhere to be found.  She was supposed to arrive no later than 9:30am, but it was going on 11:00 and no sign that she had reported to work.  This presented a problem.  I had my heart set on chicken noodle soup and having not eaten anything from roughly 24 hours, I had my heart set on having it as soon as possible. 

Around noon, Veena strolled in and was a little taking aback to see me glaring up from the couch.  She could not surmise exactly how deep in the crap she was, but she knew there would be some depth to navigate.  In typical Indian fashion, she immediately began the “excuse diatribe” which spanned from the amount of traffic to the line at the bank, finally ending on the health of her sister.  When all else fails, Indians always take the martyr route.

As you can image, my give-a-shit factor was hovering right around zero and she and I had a fairly blunt discussion on the merits of timeliness, my expectations of someone in my employ and my bowl of soup before a coughing fit set her screeching out the door to buy ingredients for the menu deviation.  

In the end, I got my soup, death has not yet come and Veena showed up at 9:30am sharp this morning.  Hell hath no wrath than a man sick and soupless!