I'm sitting here...trying to write my weekly humor column...and nothing is coming out.

Yet...I never have a problem hammering out a diary entry.

With that said ... I'm going to write the rough draft of this week's column RIGHT HERE in Diaryland. That's right ... you, DEAR READER will be able to read my weekly column a whopping THREE DAYS before paying subscribers.

...I dunno about you...but MY nipples are already hard.

Okay ... I have a topic in my head ... taking care of a sick wife ... now...let the stream of consciousness begin to flow ...flow stream of consciousness...flowwwwwwww.............

FLOYD NIGHTINGALE ... PAGING FLOYD NIGHTINGALE

I love my wife. I may not always act like it here in this little sideshow drama we like to call "My Life". But that's because I know I can poke fun at her here and she's the one person who won't get mad. Mainly because she has no idea what I do for a living. The last time we talked about MY job, I was selling Kirby vacuum cleaners and still had all my hair. But deep down the woman compliments me. Without her, I am not whole.

That said ... if my wife ever gets bedridden sick again, as God as my witness, I'm on the last train to Clarksville, and you can meet me at the station, Joe Palomine. Because I'm going to need a place to crash for the next several months and your Futon is looking mighty sassy right about now.

After being abnormally fatigued all week long, my wife -- a pillar of strength if I've ever seen one -- finally collapsed in an exhausted heap Friday night.

I suffered this same malady recently. It wasn't really the flu ... it was the same feeling you get when you haven't slept in six weeks. I felt like I had been Mike Tyson's cell mate for four years.

I hurt. I ached. I hadn't felt this bad since witnessing that Cher concert on HBO.

Thank God for the afore-mentioned wife. She was there to make sure I took my vitamins, ate my soup and sipped my Fresca.

Whatever happened to Fresca anyway? Wasn't that the most godawful tasting soft drink ever? It was like the limburger cheese of carbonated beverages. For years, my mom would punish us kids by washing our mouths out with Fresca. And we hated it, because Fresca tasted like canned phlegm. If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'.

...Eh. I'm dyin' anyway. We all are. If you think you're going to cheat death, you must be in on some secret that I'm not. Normally, this would be a fine time to join hands and sing "Kumbayah", but this is, after all, a newspaper column and not a bonfire. So back off, Skippy.

So Friday night, Susie begs me to go and get her prescription filled.

It's my wife. It was the least I could do for her. Actually, after thinking about it, I think the LEAST I could do for her would be to mentally clean the house and mentally cook dinner and then brag about it afterwards.

It took me over an hour at the pharmacy because there was a discrepancy about my insurance never paying for a Viagra prescription in 1998.

Hey, I was young.

I experimented.

Yes, I took Viagra ... but I never....once....ejaculated.

(Okay ...that will have to be edited for sure. But it cracked my big ass up. I'm sure somebody else has probably already used that joke anyway.)

I finally cleared up the matter by grabbing my wife's prescription and fleeing the store. Once home, Susie begged me to feel her forehead and tell her if she had a fever.

I could tell by the mucus-spewing coughing fits that she was having that she had a fever. There was really no need for me to lay my hand across her slimy forehead for a second opinion.

"You're sick, hon. Just take it easy and I'll take care of you all weekend," I said as I handed her the medication.

Alright. At the time, those words were probably sincere. But have you bothered to check how long weekends are these days? Try 48 hours my friend. I don't care if I'm Zza Zza Gabor's manservant (thanks Johngalt *grin*), I'm not waiting on ANYBODY hand and foot for 48 hours straight.

She then smiled weakly and said five words that threw a wrench in my bicycle spokes.

"In sickness and in health".

I heaved a heavy sigh and waved the white Kleenex. I had been defeated.

So for the next 48 hours, I was at her beck and call. This is something I am COMPLETELY new at. As sick as I've seen my wife over the years, this past weekend was the first time I couldn't see her fend for herself.

That could have been partially my fault. As her doctor, the first medical decision I made was to keep her zonked out on NyQuil day and night. After that, she wasn't a whole heckuva lot of trouble the rest of the weekend. Sure, the incessant snoring day and night is no picnic. But I read some study somewhere that if you push and kick a snorer long enough, they will eventually get up and stumble into a wall before finding a safe haven in the living room. And believe it or not ... it works. Try it next time and thank me later.

I sit here and want to say how horrible it was to take care of her for cheap laughs, but...being the Valentine's Day issue and all ... she was a real trooper.

I couldn't have asked for a better patient.

END OF COLUMN

I'm gonna have to make the ending a little more sappy. And edit the hell out of it.

But there you go. God. That took an hour. Longer than I thought it would.

Ah well, time to go mess with it.

And by the way ... my wife wasn't THAT sick. She WAS fatigued, she DID have me go get medication, she did sleep most of the weekend, she DID have a fever, she BARELY ate. But she ...ummmmm....

...Well hell. I guess she was pretty sick.

This site makes me feel slightly used and a bit frazzled.

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