Oy Vas I Toisty!

EB White wrote that analyzing humor is like dissecting a from. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.

Still, several years ago a Canadian novelist and sociologist wrote "Born to Kvetch," a great study of Jewish (particularly Yiddish based) humor. His keystone joke example was an old lady who annoyed a fellow train passenger about wanting a glass of water on an overnight trip --  the young man goes to heroic lengths to find her a glass of water so the old biddy would finally stop complaining and allow him to get some sleep. At the end, with the old lady gratefully drinking, and the young man drifting off, he hears one final lament: "Oy -- VAS I toisty!"  In other words, the kvetching/complaining wasn't properly completed until its history was explored.

Wifey and I get that joke very well. Her mother, who just turned 94, was the Michael Tilson Thomas of conducting complaints. It's not enough you know how miserable she is -- you need to fully understand how bad things WERE.

And so it was for me this week. I'm a very lucky guy -- I have never spent the night in the hospital. I've had diagnostic tests that COULD have sent me down the green mile, but instead were the launch pad for appreciative celebrations of life.

So Monday, I started feeling bad at the office, following a cool and rainy weekend in NYC. I called my doc, Mary, thinking it might be early flu, even though I got my vaccination. Mary ordered Tamiful, and I took a pill, but that night had a nasty reaction -- insomnia and awful, jarring dreams. I felt better, so stored the pills, and actually went to the office Tuesday and Wednesday.

Thursday the low grade fever returned, and I started coughing up prodigious amounts of green silly putty. My head hurt. The coughing of the viscous stuff would wake me in a panic -- I was drowning.

Wednesday night I jumped up, unable to get my breath. Wifey, who sleeps wonderfully when she sleeps, never stirred. I thought -- this is the way it will end. She will wake up hours later, nudge me with her foot, realize I was a cold,lump of man, and immediately Wifey would have to start making plans for wealthy widowhood.

I texted Dr. Mary yesterday, and she called in a scrip for a Z pack -- just in case my sinusitis and bronchitis was bacterial. I took the loading dose -- knowing that sometimes it was a miracle cure. It was not --I felt the worst I can recall feeling -- tired, cranky, vaguely in pain.

The wracking cough had caused my chest to hurt, but if I didn't cough up the awful material, it would just pool.

At 6 pm, it hit its zenith. The low level fever had returned, just over 100 degrees, and I self diagnosed as viral sinusitis.

I'd nod off, and then wake violently coughing. I new my viral condition was beyond medical treatment, but I thought about driving over to the Baptist ER for something -- maybe an IV where they could knock me out.

Instead, I popped a xanax pill -- an entire one, instead of the half I sometimes take when bad turbulence starts on an airplane flight. 4 hours later, I took another. And I slept --not well, but mostly without jumping up as if I was drowning.

I knew my week was nothing compared to what D1 had gone through -- hers was truly a life threatening condition. I was just miserable and uncomfortable.

And this am, as the light came in, it had LIGHTENED. The green slime was still there, but the stuffiness was gone.  I have the real sense that by tomorrow I'll be back to near normal -- just in time to welcome D2 and Jonathan from NYC.

I have stone crabs to order -- we're hosting 4 dear friends, and the Ds and their men will spend NYE together up in Shorecrest.

And, just hopefully, in a bit over a week, we can look back on 2018, and say "Oy -- vas VE Toisty!"