Curing the Uncommon Man-Cold (8 page)

“Look, there’s about 152 million males in the U.S. Let’s say half of them are over twenty-one — approximately 76 million men, give or take. You know some men never get sick… period. Never walk inside a doctor’s office. And the last needle they saw was on a sewing machine.” Christine must have thought this out in advance. “Let’s estimate 10 per cent, but it’s hard to pin down that number because no doctor’s ever seen those guys.”

Amanda was skeptical. “You mean, since their births.”

“Most of them were born at home and maybe even out in their backyards.” Christine sounded very grave. “No doctor’s ever laid eyes on them.”

“Completely off the radar.”

“You should take this more seriously!”

Amanda looked sheepish, even though her expression didn’t transmit through the phone signal.

“That’s nearly 8 million disgustingly healthy males.” Christine likely calculated with her fingers. “Which leaves 68 million men who
do
get sick some time or other.”

“Okay, to make this a good statistical curve, let’s say the opposite 10 per cent are constantly sick. Always at the doctor, they know first names of the hospital staff, and they can cite chapter and verse on their operations going back fifty years.”

“Chapter and verse. I might use that on the blog.” The audible scratching suggested Christine had paused to write a note. “So, that leaves 60 million in that general core. There’s another 10 per cent who occasionally get sick — like most people — but they pop a few pills, slurp some chicken soup, and get on with their lives.”

“True, but I wish some of those guys would stay home. They bring their nasty germs to work and get everybody else sick. My boss is one of them. Listening to King Louie snort up gallons of snot all day long just drives me bonkers. You know he’s got to be swallowing it all. Never gets rid of it… a really vile form of Yankee recycling.”

“Vivid image and good point. Maybe we’ll strategize on them after we fix Jason’s wagon. But stay focused. We just subtracted another 8 million males who occasionally get sick, but just shake it off.”

Amanda did the math this time. “That leaves 52 million men over age twenty-one.”

“So, in a regular curve, near the bottom — next to the chronic sickies — is another 10 per cent who are sick a lot, but not like the unfortunates who stay sick all the time.”

“I’m not sure you’ve adequately described them, but yeah — more sick than the norm, but not chronically ill like the bottom group. So subtract those and we’re left with 44 million men who are neither extreme.”

Christine’s eyes certainly lit up, even though it was not visible during this phone call. “Exactly. That’s the middle of this curve, the normal 60 per cent of adult American males.”

“Define
normal
.”

“No men are actually normal.” Christine sighed heavily. “For the purposes of our study, I mean the normal amount of being sick.”

“Had you considered shaving off the men in prison, the ones on heavy drugs, and those not in hetero relationships? I mean, since our new mission is to help the
women
mired in these tragedies.”

Evidently Christine considered it briefly. “No, we’re going for round numbers here. So stop being snide and work with me. We’ve got 44 million American males in regular health. How many do you figure catch debilitating colds that put them out of commission while their mommas, wives, or girlfriends wait on them hand and foot?”

“We’ll be hard pressed to locate any studies on this. Let’s see. In the interest of simplicity, let’s just say a third hardly ever get a man-cold, a third are afflicted constantly, and the middle third — roughly 15 million — get sick at least once a year.”

“Exactly!” Christine said it like she’d just found the verifying scientific citation. “Those are the 15 million in our target group.”

“Nice small test group.” Amanda didn’t care that her disapproving tone went through the phone. “Okay, let’s inject some reality into this grand scheme. When you start talking about millions of man-colds, that’s a gigantic leap from getting Jason out of his sagging jammies.”

“Our strategies are designed for women with some backbone, females still willing to fight the oppression of this stranglehold.”

“Oppression? Stranglehold? Christine, sometimes I think you’re leading a proletariat revolution instead of helping me get Jason out of my apartment.”

“Think about it. When a man is cowed into pretty complete submissiveness and passivity, we call him
whipped
. Right?” Christine sounded smug through the phone.

“Yeah, some dolts are supposedly
managed
by the woman withholding or rationing sex. But what does that have to do with man-colds?”

“Turn the tables and you have a woman whose entire life is dominated by the excessive demands and exponentially increased workload of her significant male, who schedules a cold for every season. She’s man-cold-whipped.”

“Uh, I think the analogy falls apart, though I do get your convoluted point.” Amanda sighed. “But I’m getting confused. Too many numbers.”

Christine summarized like a bored substitute teacher. “We were down to approximately 15 million adult American males who get at least one cold, and occasionally two, each year. Maybe winter and summer. During these debilitating illnesses, they cause total chaos and horrible disruption in the lives of their significant females.”

“Sounds like you want to have them rounded up and imprisoned.”

“You mean like a quarantine camp. Yeah, good idea! But we’ll hold that for the second or third tier.”

Amanda could never tell whether her zealous older friend literally meant what her words described. “I’m not sure I agree with your mathematical breakdown, but let’s say I agree there are about 15 million of these guys hacking, sneezing, moping around in saggy PJs, and leaving used tissues between the cushions. You can’t cure all of them.”

“Precisely.
We
can’t cure them. But by perfecting the Scare-Cure on Jason and blogging it for the sisterhood, we’ll provide a tiny glimmer of hope for those 15 million females who otherwise have to endure the collateral damage of this dreaded illness.”

“We all light just one little candle…”

“And the whole country will blaze up!” Christine sounded like she was practicing her acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize. Special new category,
Curing the Uncommon Man-Cold.

“You seem pretty confident of these numbers. They sound high to me. I’m not even certain 15 million American guys have at least one man-cold each year.”

“The medical journals don’t get the word.” Christine replied with authority. “It’s underreported.”

“Underreported?”

“Sure. Like crotch rashes, bowed legs, and webbed toes.”

“Webbed toes?” Amanda scoffed.

“Of course. That’s just a partial list. Infirmities like those are not reported because people would rather hush them up. Besides the social stigma, think of the lost hours at work.”

“You’re saying this disease goes underground because people are ashamed?”

Christine evidently reconsidered. “Well, that’s only part right. Men really aren’t ashamed… because they all think they’re truly dying when a virus hits. However, the women are ashamed because they let their guys get away with it!” She grumbled briefly. “But that ends now — the beginning of the end of the uncommon man-cold. We’re making history.”

Amanda wondered how much of this Christine actually believed and how much was generated by her background in college theater. Whichever it was, Christine seemed totally devoted to the interactive strategy she’d deviously concocted.

“Oh, almost forgot to tell you. Somebody’s already provided a link to a new blog, based on ours.”

“What’s on that other blog?” Amanda was not truly interested.

“Its tag is Kick-Marty.” Christine clicked. “I stumbled on it earlier today. Somebody’s started a serial or something. In among the comments about our blog, on this different blog, somebody started a tally on the slogan
Kick Marty Out
.”

“Don’t I wish. How many people agree so far?”

“They’re numbering as they add their sentiment. Let’s see, the most recent one is
Kick
Marty
Out — 11
. Wow. Eleven people already agree with us!”

“Cool.”

Chapter 6

August 13 (Thursday)

As usual, Jason entered the kitchen wearing his stained tee-shirt and droopy pajama bottoms. While yawning, he scratched his front and back at the same time. He smiled as he inhaled the aroma of something brewing. “Oooh. Is that java? I’m dying for a cup of coffee.”

“Well, it’s a coffee cousin.”

“A what?” He moved closer to the brewing appliance. It looked hot and its color was… well, actually, fairly light.

“It’s kind of a cousin to coffee.” Near the stove, Amanda was stirring something in a bowl. “Some people call it
ersatz
.”

“Well, house brands are pretty close to the good stuff. Coffee is coffee.”

“I said it’s a cousin to coffee. This is made from crushed acorns. Then they’re ground, just like coffee beans. Only it’s not coffee.”

“Acorns? Do I look like a chipmunk?” As he said it, his bearded cheeks puffed out and for that moment, he actually did resemble a larger version of those tree creatures — though not quite as furry.

“Ersatz coffee. They’ve made it from just about anything you can grind up — bark, leaves, whatever. But acorns give it more of the body you’re looking for with coffee.” Amanda pulled a frying pan from the cupboard and placed it on the range.

“This was Christine’s idea, wasn’t it?”

“We’ve both gone to a lot of trouble to locate this special diet, including ersatz coffee. A lot of expense and time to collect all these healthy food items for you, to help you through this illness. I’d think you could show a little appreciation.”

He just shook his head. “Acorns.” Jason sniffed the still-brewing concoction and wrinkled his nose. “Look, I’m going along with most of this stuff while I’m sick — you know, putting up with Christine’s craziness — but you’ve got to promise me one thing. It’s important.”

There was a loud sizzle as Amanda poured the contents of the mixing bowl into the hot frying pan. She stirred briefly and then faced him. “Promise what?”

“Not to tell anyone I know, or anyone who knows me, that I ate and drank any of this junk Christine has been trying to feed me from her cauldron.”

“Okay, I promise I won’t tell a soul about your healthy diet. My lips are sealed.” She returned her attention to the pan.

Jason spent the next five minutes watching her every movement. He was fearful the meal would disappear if he didn’t monitor it constantly.

“Okay, hold out your plate.”

“At least we’ve got scrambled eggs.” Drool had formed at the corners of his mouth.

She plopped a large spoonful on his plate. “I guess I should explain these aren’t actual eggs. Think of them as egg cousins.”

“Cousins again! Don’t tell me you scrambled some ground acorns.”

She chuckled. “Good grief, no. You can’t scramble acorns.”

“Whew! You had me worried for a minute.” It looked okay… kind of. Though slightly pale and thin.
No matter
. His intense hunger outweighed his normal investigatory precautions. “So what kind of egg cousin is this? The kind with no yolk?” He put a large forkful into his mouth.

She paused long enough for his mouth to comprehend that inaugural sample. “Tofu.”

The spray from his immediate expulsion occupied a radius of six feet or more. Some of the tofu fragments made it as far as the couch. Jason rushed to the kitchen sink and shoveled water into his mouth. His reaction was much like the aspirin sounds:
gerrh… kahh
. With a paper towel, he rubbed the surface of his tongue for about thirty seconds. Then he rinsed and gargled. He began sputtering before he’d finished spitting out the remaining water. “Scrambled tofu! Are you kidding me? It tastes like fried phlegm. You think some grease that comes from a pig’s hoof is a cousin to eggs?”

“Tofu has nothing to do with pig’s feet, or any other animal. It’s a by-product of soybeans. People use tofu in lots of ways — it’s very amenable to whatever it’s cooked with. It mimics the flavor of the other stuff in the pan.”

Jason tried to extend his tongue far enough to examine it. He couldn’t. “Well, I guess soybeans can mimic bird vomit, but that doesn’t mean I want to eat any.”

Amanda still held the pan and the scooping spoon. “So you’re saying you don’t want any breakfast?”

He shook his head sadly and rubbed his stomach. “No. I think I’ll just go brush my teeth a few times.”

“Well, first you’ve got to clean up all that tofu you spit into my living room.” She put down the frying pan and reached under the counter for moist towel wipes and a spray bottle. “I don’t want to find a single speck of tofu except on your plate and in this pan.”

“Look, I’m too weak to clean up soybean fragments.” Jason paused to add his hangdog expression. “Besides—”
cough, cough
“—I’m sick.”

She shook the large plastic spoon as she moved toward him. “You may think you’re sick now, but if you don’t clean up that mess you just made, you’re going to wish you were in the hospital.” Sometimes Amanda sounded like somebody’s stern mother.

Even as he cowered, he wondered why. Because he was so weak from hunger? It was partly because he’d never seen Amanda that severe before. Jason took the cleaning items and spent fifteen minutes collecting every shred of tofu he could find. He began to imagine he could smell it, even though the wily tofu was obviously mimicking the odor of couch cushions and draperies.

———

Amanda monitored Jason’s cleanup carefully. While Jason was occupied with that endeavor, she got a clean fork and sampled the scrambled tofu. She rolled it in her mouth a bit, chewed slightly, and then decided it needed more of a sluice action than a chew. So she sluiced down a little. “Ack!” She turned quickly and spit the remainder into her hand.

“What’d you say?”

“Back. I said
back
. Back behind you is some more tofu to clean up.”