Gripped By La Grippe

It started Saturday night. I felt tired. Now, this could have been because I was out late Friday night, and then up early on Saturday, so I brushed it off. On Sunday, I was still feeling worn down. But Monday morning, I got winded walking to my office from the parking lot, which is unusual, even for someone as lazy as I am.

Monday night, I barely had the strength to drive home.

It would stand to reason that the year I didn't get a flu shot would be the year I got the flu ... although that's a theory that's impossible to prove, isn't it? "Well, it would stand to reason that the day I didn't buy a lottery ticket was the day that I didn't win the lottery." No, actually, it wouldn't.

This was the neon-lettered electric death flu, which manifested itself Monday night and Tuesday morning with pain in every joint and knuckle, and then changed into a hacking cough and slobbery nose by Tuesday afternoon. I ran out of cough syrup and didn't have any food in the house, so I decided I could brave a trip to the bottom of the hill and the House of Rancid Lunchmeat.

Who would be at the grocery store at 3:30 on a Tuesday afternoon?

About 1,000 little old ladies, as it turned out. All of whom wanted 1/8 of a pound of lunchmeat.

"Give me about an eighth of a pound of chipped ham ... not too thin ... and let me see ... about an eighth of a pound of jumbo ... is it the Kahn's jumbo? And about an eighth of a pound of roast beef?"

An eighth of a pound? That's just about enough for one sandwich. You might as well eat it there; it's a waste of wax paper to wrap it.

So, I dragged myself back home and hid in bed with the covers over my head for the next 36 hours. Didn't go out and get the mail; didn't even feel like watching TV. Besides, what was there to watch? Something about Punxsutawney Phil coming out of his hole and seeing six more weeks of Social Security.

Last night, I did roust myself long enough to warm up some soup, and flicked on the tube as it heated. It was a public service announcement for Black History Month, sponsored by Pittsburgh Public Schools, and it featured Alma Speed Fox, who was identified as a "Civil Right's Leader."

That said something about either the advertising agency that did the spots, or the Pittsburgh Public Schools, I suspect. Whatever it said wasn't good.

The good news, of course, is that if I felt well enough to complain about typos on TV, I was probably getting better.

...

The city is thinking about selling the Lysle Boulevard parking garage, or renovating it for use as a park-and-ride for the Port Authority bus terminal, according to Pat Cloonan in The Daily News.

...

Eighteen thousand people showed up to see a guy in a top hat drag a rodent out of his hole, according to the Punxsutawney Spirit.