Something Thoughtful

    Nicholas Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to literature, history, popular culture and the arts, or just life in general. You are free to agree or disagree with him.   

                                                             HOME HORRORS

It doesn’t rain. It pours. You know the old idea. One damned thing comes after another. So here I go with my tale of woe. But don’t worry. It ends well… sort of…

Four weeks ago I underwent a colonoscopy. This is not surprising. Other members of the family into which I was born regularly have had colonoscopy’s. Our forebears were prone to being killed by cancer.  So in I went, this being the third time I was to have a colonoscopy. There is always trepidation in entering a surgeon’s room, so of course I thought for the worst… but that was nonsense. Of course I was knocked out by the anesthetics so that when I woke up I was happy and smiling. No pain whatsoever.  The surgeon told me that he had snipped off three little polyps, but for the rest I was in good health. So my bowels were in good order. 

So that was four weeks ago. But more recently was something far more annoying.

My good wife teaches piano to young students… and alas, some of them bring coughs and sniffles with them. So one day my wife came home sniffing and coughing and blowing her nose… and the sniffing and coughing and blowing her nose continued for more than a week with her throat being raw. Now we sleep in the same bed and I was sure that I was not going to catch her ailment simply by looking the other way. For a week it worked – I was in good health. And then I got the evil bot - dripping nose, endless coughing, phlegm and an endless use of handkerchiefs until I realised that it was better to use throw-away tissues. But I coughed so much in the night that I moved to a different bedroom so as not to wake my wife. It’s strange but true that coughing is most violent in the night and various medicines went down my gullet to help me out. Some angry words did not help me out.

I’m glad to say that the horror has mainly gone now. As I sit here I write and then look out the window and see a blue sky and feel a warm sun. Life is good – or it seems to be.

Next time I will try to deal with something more important – like the intelligence of ants.