The Man's Cold

Well, it's here. The Ball & Chain has a cold. It could be the golfing in autumnal weather that has been going on over this last weekend, but everyone knows these days that you can't catch a cold from chilly weather or from avoiding your parental duties.

Luckily it's not quite the man cold of You Tube fame mainly because I'm not as sympathetic as the woman in the video. (If you haven't seen it, just go to YouTube.com and search for Man Cold. I can't get it to work here.)

Take last night for example. After watching the Red Sox get booted out of the "World Series" qualifying rounds (I use that term loosly since it's US and the odd Canadian baseball team), he came to bed. Now, having been with the 5 year old almost non-stop all of last week and at the weekend due to the fact that it was "probably the last golf weekend", I was pretty knackered and in bed early. This was lost on the Ball & Chain, who, despite his fully fledged cold, watched the game till the very end. And baseball games can go on for a very long time.

For some reason, when the B&C is trying to be quiet, he makes more noise than normal. So, after putting on every light upstairs, clashing a few doors and brushing his teeth with the Sonicare electric toothbrush that sounds like a drill, (door open of course), he shuffled into the bedroom. That's his way of being quiet - shuffling his feet along the hard wood floor. Do you know how much noise that makes when there's otherwise not a sound to be heard? Cue irritated wife sitting up and saying, "Would you just hurry up and get into bed."

For some reason this took even longer than the run-up as the cold victim couldn't get comfy. Despite the fact that we have one of those Tempur/Tempurpedic beds (which is like sleeping on a sandwich), something sqeaks whenever the B&C moves, and he moves around a lot even when healthy - usually taking the duvet with him which is neatly tucked under his arms. It has been a bit of a bone of contention of late because we figured out that the mattress couldn't possibly be squeaking since it has no springs. It must be the frame. As it's on the B&C's side wouldn't you think it his responsibility to remedy the problem? Apparently the rule it that since it's irritating me, I should see to it.

Round about midnight, the B&C gets out of bed and starts with the shuffling again - waking me up, yet again. Apparently he didn't want to wake me with his sneezing, so he decided to shuffle into the adjacent bathroom (tiled, for maximum echo chamber effect), sneeze and make other coldy sounds - with the door open. Unbelievable. When he came back to bed I told him that he might as well stay in bed and sneeze since he was going to wake me whatever he did.

"Well, I'll go and sleep downstairs then", he replied. I think at this point I was supposed to say either "No, it's okay", or "No, you stay here I'll go somewhere else", but I didn't. I must admit I wondered where he would end up since the two beds in the guest bedroom were either piled full of clothes to be ironed, or not made. Apparently he went to the family room and slept on the sofa with a blanket. Oh please, the man could sleep on a washing line. Don't feel sorry for him.

Now, despite the dropping temps, I shall have to open a window or two and air the sofa before we all catch the cold. I told the B&C on no uncertain terms that when he comes home this evening I expect tht cold to be gone.

I know, - I deserve a medal!

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