Streptococcus Jewel Is The New Typhoid Mary

Are you a believer in coincidences? I, myself, am not.

This morning at 4:10 a.m. I woke up with the worst sore throat of my life. The sorest throat that ever sored. I was the possessor of the sorest throat in the kingdom of Sore Throatdom. A throat so sore that the astronauts on the International Space Station could hear my plaintive cries from space, if I had been able to plaintively cry rather than croak that I believed I might be dying.

So sore! I could hardly swallow. The top of my throat felt like two cantaloupes were jammed in there. The kind with the net-looking dry hide. I feared that I might need a trip to the ER to have a tube jammed in there to get oxygen to my lungs. SO SORE! I tried to blow my nose, but could only make that choking/gagging sound because something is haywire with my ears and nose where they connect to my throat.

Farmer H, when I patted him awake, mumbled that maybe I should skip work and go to urgent care. WHAT? With no plans left on the desk, and this being an early out, and my pupils with only today and Monday to review for their big test that the state of Missouri requires? I think not.

I had to get out of bed. I could not breathe. Don't you worry about Farmer H. He rolled over and went right back to sleep. I tottered to the kitchen and tried to run some really hot water. Which takes about five minutes. All the while the sink filling with water because Farmer H clogged it rinsing a greasy oniony glass pan. I ground up some sea salt in the grinder my best ol' ex-teaching buddy Mabel gave me, and had a tentative gargle. It was hard not to choke, but I got a bit of bubbling going in the back of my throat. I packed The Pony's lunch. I took a shower. I tried to catch a nap in the recliner, but every time I nearly dozed off, I was awakened by the sound of someone snorting and choking. That someone was me!

Farmer H shined a flashlight in my throat, and pronounced me perfectly healthy. "I don't have a stick to put down your throat, but it looks pink and not swollen to me." So sayeth the hickdoctor.

I went off to school with a mentholyptus cough drop trying to shrink my membranes, or at least deaden the pain. I had limited success with that treatment. Then I had to talk all through two classes for review.

At the lunch table, Jewel-the-water-bottle-molester let out a big cough. I turned to Tomato-Squirter and said, "I probably could have eaten twice as much of this leftover BBQ if my THROAT DIDN'T FEEL LIKE IT WAS COATED WITH BROKEN GLASS."

This evening, Farmer H again shined his flashlight, a giant longfellow like a police flashlight, with a bunch of LEDs like fly eyes on the bulb, down my throat. "Huh. It looks pretty red."

Right now the pain is not as bad, but I'm afraid to go to sleep and wake up with that same scenario.

You can't tell me that Jewel's HANDLING of my water bottle had nothing to do with this.