You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The Monkey Virus.
What is the monkey virus?
It’s the winter crud that accumulates in your sinuses, draining like a nuclear swamp from a power plant operated by Homer Simpson.
Monkey Virus swings down from the rafters, where the spiders and fermented mice droppings accumulate.
Monkey Virus keeps you in the bathroom, your stomach quaking like a covered wagon traversing the Rockies.
“Did you get your flu shot?” people ask.
No.
“Why not?”
Good question.
Perhaps because I don’t want people to inject me with tiny amounts of monkey virus to stimulate my immune system to grow antibodies to fight off the more powerful version of the monkey virus.
You see I’m afraid that a slight mutation of the monkey virus will invade my soul like pea soup in a little girl whose head spins like a lawn sprinkler.
How do you protect yourself against Monkey Mucous? I query.
“What are you talking about dad?”
My son rolls his eyes. He is in no mood for my insipid observations.
“Monkey Virus, boy. Monkey Virus.”
My son looks like he has the Monkey Virus.
He is pale and pasty and moving slower than an oil spill off Newfoundland.
“You hungry?” I ask.
“Not really,” he says, his face drooping, his eyes sagging, his stomach gurgling.
“How about some hot Soup?”
“I don’t care,” he says with the enthusiasm of a Jeb Bush campaign worker.
“What did the doctor say is wrong with you?”
“Virus.”
What is a virus? Is it bacterial? Is it something more sinister?
The kid says his stomach hurts and his head is heavy and he feels hot.
Perhaps that’s what a virus is.
I’m no doctor. I just play one on TV.
So when it comes time to shop for the boy who has a virus, I feel a bit of pressure.
He’s with me, moping, shuffling his shoes, down the aisle.
I can see the monkey virus incubating in his eyes.
“You need milk?”
“I don’t know.”
I grab a gallon of whole milk and put it in the cart.
“You need a cinnamon raisin bagel?”
“I guess.” His words trail off into the hum of the supermarket cooler.
I’ve heard you shouldn’t go shopping while stoned.
I now firmly believe that you shouldn’t go shopping with a kid with monkey virus.
I wonder if he will want bananas or feel the need to throw his poop at other patrons.
We get to the egg aisle.
“Maybe these will make you feel better,” I say opening a carton and checking for cracks or renegade embryos.
The boy stares off into the cooler, his face illuminated a pasty white.
“You want some cottage cheese?”
“I’m good,” he says, mumbling his words.
“What’s good for a virus?” I say aloud.
I roll past the Oreos, sidestep the M&M’s, blind side the pop tarts.
That’s not good virus food, I think to myself.
We get to the bacon section.
I see his eyes widen.
The kid loves processed meat.
“You want that?”
“sure,” he says, his words heavy like a passage from Walden’s Pond.
I stare at the package of processed pig meat.
“This is the source of the Monkey Virus you know.”
He stares at me. He is not interested in my strained medical analogies.
“Where the hell’s the soup?”
“Aisle 4,” a clerk says, overhearing my words.
“thanks.”
We get to the soup section.
It’s a rainbow of options. Chunky and Progresso and Campbells.
OH MY.
“Which one?”
He stares at the cans of healthy choices.
Then he reaches for the box of Chicken Noodle Soup.
I look at him.
“That’s hot water and dehydrated saw dust. Oh, yeah, and yellow dye number 3.”
“That’s what I like,” he says.
Hot water, yellow dye #3. It’s a sure elixir for Monkey Mucous.
“You sure you want that box soup?”
“Yes!”
His words are truncated, loaded with raspy sickness.
He looks like a rancid piece of ham.
“OK. Let’s get the hell out of here,” I say.
He pushes the cart forward, leaning on it like an octogenarian leans on a walker.
“Did you find everything you need?,” the check out clerk asks.
“Everything but the Anti Monkey Virus medicine,” I facetiously counter.
The clerk looks at me incredulously.
My son rolls his eyes as he places the items from the shopping cart on the conveyor belt.
“Do you want your milk in a bag sir?”
God I hate when they ask me that.
Monkey Virus can make you mean.
Life’s Crazy™