The cold weather is creeping back in and the office smells like Vick’s Vaporub.
Yep, man flu season is well and truly upon us but we all handle it differently.
It begs the question – which one are you?
The martyr who won’t take any medicine
They’re snorting and hocking the life out of themselves behind you, you’re worried that they’ll keel over and die on the spot, and you ask them if they’d like the spare Lemsip that you always keep at the back of the drawer.
“No I (wheeze) don’t (cough) take any (bleuch) of that shite. They’re all placebos. I’m grand.”
You can see your own reflection off the sweat on their face. They’re anything but “grand,” but they refuse to take the day off for themselves.
“I haven’t been… off… sick… in three years!”
Like they’ll get a medal.
The hypochondriac
They bring their own thermometer to work, wear a scarf around their necks in May, have more drugs in their pedestal than Pete Doherty and when they bleed, they bleed echinacea.
The funny thing is, they never get f***ing sick, so maybe they’re on to something.
The dosser
Sneezed once on Sunday, texted the office first thing on Monday morning to say he wouldn’t be back in until Wednesday. Never, ever rings in sick because a) phone calls cost money and b) he’d be rumbled.
Will likely spend the time off mainlining The Wire, eating Corn Flakes straight from the box, going to the pub (local, nowhere he could be spotted), watching something called The Chase and being generally useless.
We envy him, given his lack of scruples and the fact that come December he’ll somehow be looking at a promotion and a pay rise. The bollix.
The panicker
Sneezed twice on Sunday, presumed he had Ebola, went to A&E in full Breaking Bad boiler suit rig-out, got turned away by security, tripped over, broke ankle, true story.
The Mammy’s boy who has to go home to be looked after
While most of us know that a few Lemsips and maybe a cheeky hot whiskey will have us feeling better in no time, this fella does not know how he can possibly be sick without having his mam and dad tending to his every whim. Toast in bed, the telly placed at just the right angle, no ‘bits’ in the soup, “can you turn off the big light, mam, it’s hurting my eyes?”
It’s all there.
Our friend, incidentally, is 29-years-old and works in accountancy.
The person who’s just always broken
You work with them every day, and you can’t remember the last time you saw them looking human. Constantly hocking and snotting into the bin, sneezing 57 times a day, he’s a knuckle-cracking, no vegetable eating, tea slurping mess of an individual whose personal misery knows no bounds.
With that diet – mostly curry chips, Cup-a-Soups and Mars bars – he won’t be getting better any time soon.
You slip him a Berocca and pretend it’s a Fanta.
The one who plans to drink the pain away…
Alcohol. It will kill the pain, it will clear the sinuses, it may even smooth out the rocky road that is your oesophagus, and you will feel superhuman come midnight and full sure that this magical potion has bested the horrible, mucal mess of a cold that was bubbling under for days.
The next day, you will be destroyed as a human being. It’s not worth it.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
