Flu Funk

I could not have picked a better time to get sick.
I don't have to move from this bed. I can sit here and play online poker and watch movies all day if I wanted, without apologies and without any hint of recourse from the wife because Mom is helping her with our brood, along with my brother and his family. Not only do I not help when a baby is crying, I'm hollered at for getting close to one.
And yet I'm feeling all kinds of sorry for myself. My brother tonight will get to enjoy a dinner with Dad at KC's finest BBQ place, with beans that taste like candy and sausage flavored with three different layers of smoke. As we speak Jayden is going outside to play in the snow and get some sledding in, and as our relationship continues to flounder, that's a job for Daddy, not my wife's husband. I'm obviously not welcome anywhere outside this room, all of them convinced I'm the spreader of the Black Plague. My brother jokingly put a Quarentine sign outside the bedroom door, though he was probably only half kidding.
Why the fuck did I get that flu shot?
My only sunshine today is the chance to do nothing but fun stuff, something I usually ache for, and the knowledge that Kate and Jayden had this little bug a few days ago and felt better after 24 hours. After a night of sitting on the pot all night and a puking session, I'm feeling much better today already. The 7-up seems to be staying down and the Wheat Thins are settling the former typhoon that was my stomach.
I'll be ready for New Year's Eve, maybe even Sunday night, when the NFL serves up a buffet of mostly meaningless games and I'll just hang with the kids and the family. But today I'll sit here and brood and maybe take out my misery on the fish at the tables. Maybe the next time I wish for a day in bed screwing around, I'll remember what it's actually like.