I’ve noticed a couple of things while sitting on the couch for the past couple of days. The first is that modern television is shit. No surprise, right? I stopped watching TV seriously about 8 years ago, after Finn was born; at one point we had three or four TVs in the house hooked up to basic cable and there used to be shows that were worth watching. My channel list today shows nothing but Duck Dynasty and Flip or Flop on continuous repeat. The second is that modern news is total shite. No real surprise there, but when I go to Mexico and I can find out what’s happening in the world faster and easier when the anchors are speaking Spanish, there’s something severely wrong. It’s no wonder we’re dangerously close to electing a racist liar for President.

I’m currently dosed with fist-sized capsules of Cipro to fight off the worst combined case of fever and GI tract hell I’ve ever experienced. Traveler’s Diarrhea is no joke, my friends. I can see why they came up with a funny nickname for it. Montezuma’s Revenge sounds a lot better than EYEBALL FRYING POOP SHOWER BRAIN HOLOCAUST. I didn’t drink water from anywhere but a bottle; I stayed at a Holiday Inn that was international in quality, so I didn’t think twice about eating the fruit at breakfast. I did have sandwiches at the paintball course that were brought from a street vendor (or so I understood); at that point I hadn’t eaten anything all day and had to take what they gave me.

I did not think the gestation period would take this long, but there you have it. I started feeling feverish Saturday afternoon and by that evening it was up to 102˚; I spent Sunday battling fever and then on Monday the bottom system fell apart. We went to Patient First on Monday and they gave me Cipro, but nothing was working so today we decided to go to the ER for a second look and some fluids. They gave me two bags of saline and took a bunch of blood and other stuff for testing. The fever seems to have broken, but my head still hurts and I’m waiting for the plumbing to get fixed.