Inevitably, there will come a time during this semester when you fall a bit ill. You may find yourself with the average college campus cough and cold. A fever could work its way into your schedule. If you’re particularly unlucky, who knows – you could even come down with pneumonia! (Just me on that last one? Yeah? Okay.)
Perhaps your unavoidable bout with illness – for, on the communicable-disease-Mecca that is the college campus, it is unavoidable – has already passed for this semester. Perhaps it is yet to come. Or perhaps, your battle with illness is ongoing right now, as you write read this article. (Just me again? Damn.) In any case, at some point this semester, you will probably find yourself uttering in earnest those famous words: “*cough cough* I’m sick” – and I am here to help you when you do.Cook you chicken soup, I will not. Serve you up some hot and fresh advice on how to possibly go about doing this “life” thing while fighting a 3-pack-a-day Kleenex habit, I will. Let’s get started!
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Step 1: SWEATPANTS. If you come into my presence and claim to be “sick,” the first thing I will examine is not your puffy eyes, your runny nose, or your fistful of cough drop wrappers. The first thing I will take notice of on a “sick” classmate is her pants. Are they denim? Still worse, are they a skirt? If yes, I immediately doubt her illness.
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Ladies, if you are sick, only one type of clothing is acceptable: that which can double as pajamas. Since the #1 rule of illness recovery is “get lots of rest,” it seems only natural that the clothes we wear to do things that are not restful should make for a seamless transition into the rest that we spend our entire sick-girl day pining for.
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Step 2: COMPLAINING. You may think – and, if you know me, you may well be justified in assuming – that I include this tip sarcastically. Complaining about people complaining is generally the exact type of thing that I enjoy doing.In this case, however, I’m serious. Strategic complaining about one’s illness really can work wonders on improving the sicky-in-question’s mental health. Mention modestly in those pre-lecture chats that you’re not feeling well, and odds are at least one classmate will pipe up with the same problem. Nothing says friendship like the knowing looks exchanged over shared mid-class coughing fits.
Be so bold as to mention your illness to members of your hall staff, and you’ll probably get free tea.
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Step 3: FOODS. As it happens, the timing of this piece is such that, should you get sick at about the time it’s posted, you’re also getting sick at prime comfort food time. With the onset of fall, the dining halls and eateries of campus and beyond are stocked with the exact types of food that you, sick person, need to pretty much function at all.
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Go to the dining hall! Eat soup! Put some crackers in your soup to make it feel like you are not eating a beverage for dinner! Experience warmth and fall-time well-person joy.Then go get some fro-yo for dessert because A) you deserve it and B) everyone’s already judging you for the Snuggie you’re probably trying to pass off as real clothes, so what even is shame at this point?
And if you remember nothing else, remember this: you are not alone.
Trust me, you’re not. If you doubt it, go to the St. Liam’s waiting room and just watch. It’s disgusting.