So firstly I must apologise to
all my avid readers for not posting much this week but I have been ill, I have
been suffering. I have been suffering from an illness that is as catastrophic to
the family home as the Black Death used to be, yet thanks to modern medicine it
is not as morbidly devastating. It is flu but not any ordinary flu. In fact
just like the Spanish Influenza it has been given its own name; a recognition
of its severity, a recognition of the pain endured by all the sufferers of Man
Flu.
Now Man Flu cannot be confused
with any type of flu. You know those flus where you can still take the kids to
school, go to work, do the food shop and any other every day task that comes
up. With Man Flu you cannot do any of this; you are too weak. With Man Flu all
you can do is lie in bed and do nothing except for moan and whine to anyone who
doesn’t want to listen.
It is not known why Man Flu is
worse than other flus. I was speaking to a medical expert the other day and
when I asked her why Man Flu is worse she just raised her eyebrows, smiled and
chuckled. Clearly she was too embarrassed to even try to provide an explanation
because she was just baffled by this medical mystery. Another doctor used the
phrase “completely flummoxed” when I was talking to him about a completely
different health concern with no reference to the topic of this post.
The symptoms of Man Flu and
normal flu are both similar and very different. The similarities include raised
temperature, coughing and that yucky guckiness along with a few others.
However, Man Flu, unlike flu, also causes day bed or sofa ridden syndrome with
TV remote in hand requiring someone else to do everything for you as you
moan and groan about how this is more awful than anything in the world.
Normally it is so bad that other
family members rally around to care, possibly the wife, girlfriend, mother,
sibling or even a flatmate arrive at the door with soup or a hot drink as you
pretend to be sleeping. You let out another moan to show how ill you are when
really the moan is for the fact that you were just getting to the point in
Midsummer Murders where the killer is about to be revealed but now you have to
pretend to be really, really ill; missing it all.
Yes it is that bad. If you doubt
it then let me ask you this. How many other illnesses cause as much self-pitying
as Man Flu? Not many in my knowledge, not many at all. How many illnesses
require you to stay in bed all day doing nothing except for watching rubbish
daytime television? It is quite inexplicable really but strangely the symptoms
of Man Flu are also its Cure.
I should make it clear that I did
not invent this Cure. I imagine it first came about when the first man to own a
TV got flu; a flu that was a bit worse than the usual flu and hence was the
first victim of Man Flu. I imagine it was he who first came up with the remedy.
I imagine it was he who refused to get out of his bed as his wife catered for
his every need and did everything else, it was probably he who then realised
that by doing this for a few days and then stringing it out for a few more made
him feel so much better. It was he who probably first perfected The Cure by enforcing constant sympathy from every person he came across during his horrifying experience.
He then must have handed it down
through the generations. No one else has come along and thought of a better
one. People have tried. There has been nagging, arguments and all sorts. Mainly
about a non-Man Flu sufferer saying that she doesn’t spend all day in bed
watching TV when she has the flu. However, the answer to this is a simple one.
She never had Man Flu. She had another flu that was not as bad as Man Flu. If
it was as bad someone would have named it Woman Flu but they didn’t because it
is not as bad.
It makes perfect sense right? Or
is that perfect nonsense? Man Flu is awful and there is only one Cure. To do nothing,
well nothing of any use anyway. But then again that is like most days whether
suffering from the illness or not, according to an unspecified source.
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