Ebola On The Mind

Last night, and this morning, I was really sick. Now, normally, I don’t spend a notable amount of time trying to figure out what specifically I’m ailing from, nor do I try to pinpoint any virus/contaminant’s time and point of entry. Then, of course, Ebola makes national headlines.

All I could keep thinking of was, I am guilty of telling every Ebola joke in the book for weeks now. It occurred to me as I puked what felt like my very soul into the porcelain throne, over and over and over again, I might be dying of Ebola.

I mean, I do have that kind of luck, you know. And this must be exactly what dying from Ebola feels like.

 

I found the irony both scary as well as entertaining. If I died of Ebola after telling all those lame Ebola jokes, I would be an odd story in many lives for ages to come. I’d still be a footnote, but a completely different kind.  That would be the only thing a bunch of people would ever remember about me. 

“You remember that girl who told me that horrible Ebola joke? Yeah? Well, guess what! She died…of ebola!! I saw it on tv this morning!!” 

“I once worked with this girl who kept telling me the dumbest Ebola jokes every morning, and I’ll be damned if she didn’t die of Ebola a few weeks later. Girl never did have a bit of luck.”

“You know what happens when little boys and girls make fun of bad things? You die of Ebola, like a girl I once knew.”

 

I have had a couple of those ebola jokes backfire on me. Right at the beginning of America’s Ebola Scare, my daughter Caitlyn called me from Arizona. Neither of us are big telephone people, so we don’t talk as often as I imagine most parent/children do, but I could tell from her voice, this time she wasn’t her normal, chipper self.

Me: What’s wrong, Bug?

Cait: I haven’t been feeling good.

Me: Maybe its Ebola.

Cait: Yes, mom. It is Ebola.

Me: Oh my God!!!

Caitie is in the Air Force. For supposedly being in the “safe” part of the military, she’s always scaring the shit out of me.

Then she started laughing, and I eventually got my heart to start beating again. She was kidding. Horrible child….

 

Thankfully, I feel much better, and I suspect I had food poisoning, not Ebola. I wish I could promise I will treat Ebola with more respect and seriousness, but I don’t want to lie to you. I really can’t help myself. 🙂

~ Bird

 

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So, I’m finally jumping on the Blogging Event bus like so many of the rest of you. The month of November I am competing in the NaBloPoMo event and the NaNoWriMo event. Yep. I’m going big.

For National Blog stuff, I’ve been perusing the daily prompt ideas. They are really good, but if there’s one thing I don’t really struggle with, it’s coming up with an idea for a post. I’m like an endless pit of dumb stuff to talk about. The blog event will be pretty easy for me, I think.

For National Novel Writing Month, I am writing a story with my daughters, Caitlyn and Rebekkah. We’ve been working on the idea for a little over a week or so, and I can’t believe how fun this is turning out to be. Both of the girls write well, and I love how hard it is to tell which of us wrote what. Caitie and I are committing to the NaNoWriMo schedule of writing 1600 words a day, but Bekkie is in college full-time, and she has less time to commit to something like this. Still, this should be awesome!!