Sick days

I'm sick.  Not one of those no good, can't move, wish you could just die already illnesses like the flu, where when you finally bounce back you feel like you could take on the world.  No, no.  This is one of those boring, tedious, wish you could just get over this crap already sicknesses.  Not enough to incapacitate, but enough to annoy.

Which got me to thinking about my youth.  Sick days did not come often.  I was so innocent and...driven, back then.  Driven is the wrong word.  I just hadn't come to truly understand the opportunities I had.  I may have missed a few days here and there, but I was definitely one of those near-perfect attendance types.  Sickness or not. 

I remember being in the back of class just coughing my head off on a regular basis. 

A friend would suggest I go home, or to the nurse, SOMEWHERE away from this treacherous social studies class.

But "nay!" I would say.  Today we learned about George Washington.  Or..Martin Luther!  Or was it Black History Month? 

No, no.  On the days I should have been home, I was in my seat at class, being a good student.  Note the halo.

That is not to say that I did not have sick days.  These were the days I cherished.  Mrs. Grass chicken noodle soup (extra sodium please?), in my huge brown bowl with a piece chipped off the top.

Wrapping up in that same green afghan so purposely made with huge holes that somehow still kept you warm, and sitting down to watch some of the most amazing television to ever air.  We all watched it on our sick days.

THE PRICE IS RIGHT!

Bidding in our heads the prices of things we, as young children to never shop for 99% of the things on the show, somehow know the prices of better than the adult contestants.  And it was always appropriate to bid $1.  How can you be so foolish to not see that!?  What really grinded my gears (I am simply using that phrase because I wanted to use that phrase) was when someone would feel they were so smart that they'd go between bids of, say, 850 and 900 by saying 851.  Way to go, fail.  You were wrong!?  Here's your slap in the face.

But even better, even better than The Price is Right, was Cartoon Network.  Why?  A Pup Named Scooby Doo.  The show had sheek, good looking colors where character movements flowed unlike any older scooby doo counterparts.  The story lines were so grappling, the pot smoking so innocently unnoticed, the awesomeness unparalleled.  These were the days I cherished.

Its odd to think that, years later, I've dropped so low in my personal expectations.  Life is good, but...that innocuous sense of necessity to achieve is what drove me through so many years of success as a budding mind.  To think that it is gone and replaced by a sense to cut corners is unfortunate.

So, this next shot of alcohol-containing medicine is to Bob Barker and a Pup Named Scooby Doo.