Hackwheezesniff.

I am sick. Phlegm-y, cough-y, losing-my-voice-y sick. And I am bitter about it.

I hate being sick at the best of times. Not like anyone wakes up to a scratchy throat one day, and is like, “Aw yeah! Here comes a totally sweet cold! ROCK!”, but I am a bad sick person. I swing between feeling totally pitiful and wanting everyone to feel sorry for me and take care of me, and hating life and wishing everyone would just back OFF already and LEAVE.ME.ALONE. It is not a good combination.

This round, though, I am somewhat more bitter than usual. Dude, it’s spring. The weather is finally nice and while I would like to be in the mood for wearing strappy sandals and cute little (not THAT little – still school appropriate) spring skirts, instead I want to huddle in an oversized old college sweatshirt while sipping peppermint tea laced with honey and lemon.

I thought about staying home yesterday, and by the end of the day, I really wished I had. But my kids are in the middle of an assessment, and yesterday was scheduled as a conferencing day. Can’t really have a sub do that, and if I switched lessons to something a sub could do, then it throws our schedule off, and I have to come up with something random but still useful, and I dread coming back to the sub note detailing just which of my little 8th period darlings had terrorized the class today…unless you’re REALLY sick, like vomit-y, fever-y, delirious sick, staying home as a teacher just isn’t worth it. I’m bitter about that too.

This morning I feel better. My nose has faded from a brilliant red to what I think is a somewhat more charming shade of pink, my snot levels seem to have receded slightly, and my voice, while throaty, is currently above a whisper (it was yesterday at school, too, but by last night, I was considering buying an air horn so I could command attention when needed). I would have preferred to get more than two hours of sleep last night, but apparently my body had other ideas, so I’m going with it and assuming we’ll make it through somehow. If I completely fall apart by the end of the day, well, tomorrow’s lesson CAN be done by a sub, so there’s that.

God, I hate being sick.