By Jim "Rant-Man" MacQuarrie

SHHNUURK!

I'm sick.

Not sick like Jeffrey Dahmer's refrigerator. Sick like a dog. I've been fighting it off for a week, but Friday I surendered. Went home early and took to my bed. Well, sofa, really. Fat lot of good it did me.

SHHNUURK! That's the sound of me snuffling up the stuff that's been running out of my face for the last week. When I can't snuffle it up any more, and a drip escapes, I'll grab a tissue (two or three, actually; I tear clear through a single tissue) and release an amazing blast that sounds something like the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. That sound is followed immediately by the high-pitched squeal of my suinuses refilling. Ungh. I feel like eight kinds of hammered hell. And you get to hear about it, because misery loves company, and there's nothing worth watching on the one-eyed idiot box.

It started out as a scratchy throat last Tuesday, then a headache joined in on Wednesday. The nose started running on Thursday, and by Friday it was a steady stream like a faucet. I feel like death warmed over and allowed to congeal in a moist, dank place. Slept all day Saturday, then on Sunday I worked on the Site of the Week for you ungrateful beasts.

So here I sit with snot running into my beard (maybe I ought to shave; it's nasty), trying to come up with something marginally entertaining for you people, and do you appreciate it? Judging by the cricket sounds emanating from the desolate message board, probably not. You're not exactly shoving each other aside to get to the tip button either, I gotta say. I'm feeling unloved at the moment. I draw a cartoon a week come hell or high water, write something in this space every Thursday, and do a bunch of other stuff, and nobody's buying my beautiful Monkey Spit t-shirts. urgh.

So you have to put up with my pity-party now. My head is killing me. It feels like somebody is squeezing my eyeballs from the back, like the bulb on the Joker's squirting flower. Any minute my left eye will burst and spray liquid across the room. Speaking of which, have you tried that Penn & Teller "stabbing your eye with a fork" gag yet? It's a classic. All you need is one of those little cups of coffee creamer that you get at 7-11 or your favorite truck stop, and a fork. You hide the creamer in the web of your hand (the bit between your thumb and index finger) with the bottom toward the back of your hand. Loosely curl your hand around the creamer to conceal it. Say something to get the attention of the people around you, then pick up the fork and say "ever feel like this?" and make like you're going to stab yourself in the eye. Bring the hand with the creamer in it up to your face, and jam the fork into the creamer. Squeeze the creamer with your thumb and scream like crazy as the cream sprays out of your hand. It freaks people out.

So I'm sick. *KAFF* *KAFF* I wish I could call in and stay home tomorrow, but I can't. I've made myself indespensible. Oh well, at least they probably won't fire me any time soon. But this adventure better not linger, because when I'm sick I'm Mr. Crankypants. I lie around and moan, and make the kids wait on me hand and foot. That's what they're for, isn't it? We had the first one because our TV didn't have a remote. "Hey kid, go change the channel. Thanks." The second one was so I could get out of cleaning the catbox. I'm not sure yet what the last one is for; so far she's skating by on cuteness, but that'll pass. So I make them wait on me. "Ked I hab sob ice creab blease? Dank you." I really milk it, too. Not with my bride so much, because for some reason known only to God, she actually loves me and waits on me hand and foot without me playing the walking dead for her.

I thought I might tell you stoies about my brother Fat-head this week, but my mom is trying to get online, and she'll read it and then I'll never hear the end of it. So far she hasn't been able to get set up with her internet provider. I think that's because she's what they call a "12 o'clock flasher;" every appliance in her house blinks "12:00" all the time. Saturday morning, while I was dying with this thrice-damned plague, she called me up, completely frazzled from the frustration of trying to figure out how to use Windows. Mom used to be very proficient with the computer system she used at a former employer, but that was a mainframe thing and she hasn't touched it since about 1985; the desktop revolution passed her by completely and she's trying like crazy to catch up. So far it's a rocky path. "Bill Gates is the Spawn of Satan!" she shouts into the phone. "Why are they doing this to us?!??" She curses Microsoft for a while, and eventually calms down. I walk her through a few simple tasks on her PC over the phone. Eventually she's her normal self again. I gave her some basic instructions on how to use her modem and said goodbye. She hasn't called back, but I also haven't gotten any e-mail from her yet, so I'm a bit doubtful that it went well. Fortunately the computer I gave her is too big for her to pitch out the window.

A friend suggested I should have given her a Mac. I thought about it, but then I realized she would be able to use it, and then she'd be reading this, and then she'd be mad at me. Sooner or later she'll read it, and then, well, when this page goes away, you'll know why.

Now I'm going to bed. *KAFF*

No, I'm not sick. I'm dead; leave the flowers and get out.

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