I Think I Have a Man-Cold

Hello friends,

Weeks 9 and 10 of funemployment have included our reintroduction to public school, which means our reintroduction to viruses.

My elementary kids came home with tiny coughs and low-grade fevers last week, which in the post-COVID era means they stay home or I risk getting the shame call from the school suggesting that perhaps I reconsider my parenting strategy.

This is very different from my childhood.

I distinctly remember lying on the floor of the school secretary’s office when I was sick. Granted, the school secretary was my aunt, and she had four children of her own attending the same school. Nobody was going home on her watch.

She often had an extra pair of pants in my size because I regularly got too busy to make it to the bathroom. And no, not just in kindergarten.

Lovely woman. I’m getting off track.

What I meant to tell you is that I have officially entered the “my body is so confused about what to do with itself that we’re just getting sick for fun” stage of funemployment.

I’ve been lying around the house like a potato for four days.

The kids get the sniffles.

I get laid out like a goddamn doughball.

I dare say this is what a man cold feels like. Will we ever know?

I’ve been as productive as a sloth. Nobody needs me. My husband is busy with his bike club. My girls spent all weekend building a blanket fort the size of my mainfloor without my help. (Though I will likely GET to help clean that disaster of fun up.) My teenager finally has a phone, so he’s occupied—except when he emerges to remind me that I need to stop buying protein-enriched cereal because he is not, and I quote, “a middle-aged woman with bone density issues.”

Fair.

I remember when my job gave me a constant supply of people who needed something from me. There was always a problem to solve, a meeting to attend, a volunteer to find, a Sunday coming whether I was ready or not.

Now?

Apparently I can just… be sick.

No one has collapsed. No institution has failed.

My children have located their own snacks. (Whilst complaining)

My husband has his own friends. (In lycra uniforms)

So for now, I’m going back to the couch, where I will continue my important work as a human doughball.

God help me rise.

— Sheila