An early spring (out)break
I was making coffee in the kitchen when a virus the size of a Russian terrier entered the house, snatched my sports section, plopped down in my chair. He behaved like our friends, so I didn’t so much as complain.
“Coffee?” I asked.
“No, thanks,” the virus said.
“Cold or flu?” I asked.
“Flu,” he said.
“Thought so,” I answered.
“Cold will be here later,” he promised.
You could tell this virus was a professional. He didn’t waste much time. His pockets were stuffed with misery.
“You must be ALF?” he asked.
“Actually, I’m just a dad,” I explained.
“Kids?” he asked.
“Four,” I said.
“What were you thinking?” he said.
“It was my wife’s idea,” I said.
We talked a little about the Lakers and the recent weather. I offered him breakfast. He said he had too much work to do. Evidently, business is good.
“Honey, the virus is here!” I called to my wife in the next room.
“Cold or flu?” she asked.
“Flu,” I said. “Cold will be here later.”
“OK,” she said, and went back to ironing our ATM receipts.
It’s not just our house. Everywhere you go, kids are hacking. Mothers and fathers are frazzled, missing work. Even the dogs are losing out on precious sleep. It’s a March madness, is what it is.
“You think you could maybe spare us?” I asked the virus.
“Sorry,” he explained. “We have quotas.”
“Obviously,” I said.
The symptoms are simple: a warm forehead, an itchy nose, something-just-not-right in the belly.
Much like love, this year’s flu leaves you with impaired judgment and trembly hands. So how can you tell which one you have? The flu lasts a month. Love? Don’t even ask.
“Brandon’s been sick for three weeks,” one mother says.
“Mine’s been sick a month,” someone else says.
“Carrie was supposed to play Eleanor Roosevelt,” says another mother. “They made her go home.”
First, the virus zapped the baby. He’d cough all night, then cough all day, producing a Berlin Wall of germs that ran from the kitchen to just behind the den couch. You could paint graffiti on it. Or hang posters of Jonas Salk.
Perched near the sink, the baby would slurp medicine through an eye dropper, like a sick sparrow. His eyes glistened, as did his nose and chin. The few words he knows came out as motor boat noises. He’d wander the house on unsteady legs, Chaplin in search of a new gag.
“That-a-boy,” his mother would say as she fed him pink antibiotic.
“Ay-umph,” he’d say, then clutch her shoulder.
“You really need to eat something, sweetie,” she’d say.
“Cat,” he’d say, his favorite dish.
After him, the flu found his mother, evidently preying on some of our most-prized possessions.
“Feel my head,” my wife asked, and all I could think was “Great, we’re touching again! Isn’t marriage wonderful?”
In many ways, my wife had never been more appealing. The flu left her with the throaty purr of a burlesque queen. She sat on the couch surrounded by wads of Kleenex, a natural rouge to her cheeks, growling out orders. It brought back memories of our wedding day: People with too much makeup, wailing all around her. Sympathy hanging from the trees. More like an Ingmar Bergman funeral than a true celebration of love.
“What’s wrong with Mom?” the little girl asked.
“She’s got the flu,” I said.
“Moms don’t get sick,” she said.
“This year they do,” I explained.
I placed their dear mother on the bed, a pillow beneath her fevered head, a baby beside her. Every two hours I’d take her pulse, because that’s what they do on the doctor shows. In the afternoon, I offered to make her a whiskey collins. Besides Girl Scout cookies, it’s the only medicine I know.
“You have to keep your sense of humor,” I explained to her.
“No, I don’t,” she said.
“Soup?” I asked.
“No, thanks,” she said.
“I meant for me,” I said. “I’d love a little soup.”
She smiled, but just a little. This could be serious. I took the baby from her side -- her mink, her second set of lungs.
Together, we made his mother dinner.
Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com.
