Monday 20 October 2008

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!

.

27 comments:

  1. Oh, oh, oh....that video is bloody hilarious! Classic! LOL!
    That story and yours as well is repeated around the world thousands of times each night. Sad pathetic little men. ;)
    My B & C consistently steals the covers, a situation you would have expected to improve with the purchase of a KING SIZE BED! But oh no, he's a wrapper. Not the musical kind but the kind that instead of lifting his body and the blankets up when he needs to shift, he rolls and takes the blankets with him. The more he rolls the more I lose!
    He's away for three days now so I'm enjoying some alone time, just me and the blankets!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great post - you saint !! Great video too = have you checked out the Man Stoke Woman man cold one - also very good. Thanks for the Monday morning chuckle!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have to admit my own behaviour is not good when I have a cold, sorry girls. I am usually irritable, and as much use as a wet blanket. Wine helps though. You know you still have the cold but you don't care as much! My other half is somewhat more stoical than moi as a patient overall. He just takes to his bed and sleeps til it's all over.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ahh, aren't you being too hard on him?! hehe

    ReplyDelete
  5. Tell him Baden-Powell (founder of the scouts) slept outside, in a hammock on his balcony all his life (and lived to be nearly ninety!).

    ReplyDelete
  6. My question to old B-P would be "WHY?"

    ReplyDelete
  7. Did B-P ever have a cold though, and did he have a wife to sleep in the hammock with? It's that time of year again, I get very short-tempered with man-flu too, I think tough love is the only way to deal with it.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I think I could have understood old B-P better than I can your old man. He gets a "Hurry up and come to bed" and farts around and finishes up in another room on a sofa? I see that others (above) got to see 'The Man Cold' but it was nowhere in sight when I visited via your link. x

    ReplyDelete
  9. Billy - well I did imply that I was a bit rubbish with attachments. The link should take you to You Tube and then you just type in a search for Man Cold. It's really funny.

    ReplyDelete
  10. oh dear oh dear. what is it with these men and their 'man flu' you are a trooper you really are...

    ReplyDelete
  11. been there, done that and got the t-shirt. I always said men are worse than children when they get sick..........thank goodness they don't have to give birth, or we would be living in a very under populated world!!

    Gill in Canada

    ReplyDelete
  12. Well I must admit to a sneaking sympathy for BC, until I realised that he had his last ever golfing weekend (of the season we assume, not his life!). If you have been doing childcare for that you are a better woman than I am.

    ReplyDelete
  13. too funny.
    and too true.
    men, the weaker sex.
    i say give 'em labour pains that'll show 'em.
    ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  14. Surely man 'colds' don't exist - only flu?

    ReplyDelete
  15. am utterly unsympathetic with man colds - either there aren't any symptoms so it's irritating that they claim to be ill, or they so overdo the symptoms that you want to shoot them. AND, I had you down as dark, whereas your little moppetty 8 yearold self has you, strangely!, as blonde.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Ooh, I've always wanted to be dark but don't have the palour (sp?) to take it. I have a story whereby I ended up dark and I looked like a vampire.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Thank you for the tea recommendation. I will definitely check into it. Your blog is superb and I look forward to spending some *serious* time here (when I'm not at work)(like I am now) LOL. My English hubby's US Citizenship interview is in 2 weeks. It's been a long and *expensive* 4-year journey. By the way, your book looks quite impressive - and a recommendation from Susan Toth! Wow. Between reading your book and your blog, I am going to need to fix myself a BIG pot of tea!! Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
  18. So full of wisdomosity - himself is Mr Clumpy Clumpison when I am trying to sleep.

    ReplyDelete
  19. You do make me laugh! You've pipped me to the post...I was going to blog about how my other half keeps me awake (even without the cold). Guess where he is sleeping?

    ReplyDelete
  20. You made me laugh out loud, because it is my life, every night with or without cold! My husband never goes to bed early and if I do, he wakes me in exactly the same way, toilet light on, electric toothbursh louder than a drill. I love how you made him sleep on the couch and told him to get rid of his cold before he comes home from work. Brilliant!!

    ReplyDelete
  21. I have no sympathy. Tell him to get a grip!!

    ReplyDelete
  22. Oh now hold on a minute - I'm a bit of a dragon but I didn't make him sleep on the couch. I didn't exactly stop him but still. Actually last night, I lovingly made up the guest bed in anticipation. Sure enough he wasn't around when I woke up this morning, but had he slept in the guest room? No - he didn't want to dirty the sheets (?) so slept on the sofa again. I really hate sofas smelling like people have slept on them. (Poor guy can't do right for doing wrong!)

    ReplyDelete
  23. Add me to the list of laugh-out-louders! Great post. So true...

    ReplyDelete
  24. Oh..... I don't know how you put up with it! ive him an aspirin & tell him to get a grip! LOL

    ReplyDelete
  25. I love that video. And yes, you should get a medal; man-cold's are almost the worst thing a woman has to endure from her husband. Short of asking him to tidy up before guests arrive and then going in to the sitting room an hour later only to find the room still looking like a bomb has hit, but all the cd's carefully put into alphabetical order...

    ReplyDelete
  26. Cured the duvet wrapping problem by getting separate single duvets for our king-size bed ( a la Scandinavia). Now just have to cure the man cold!!

    ReplyDelete
  27. It's true, you are a saint to put up with such unreasonable behaviour. How do they manage to make quite so much noise? Hope he's better soon, for your sake! M :-)

    ReplyDelete

The more the merrier....

Blog Archive