The inevitable suffering of the new year

For the past couple of years, I have become extremely ill around the end of winter. Two years ago, I contracted a cough that lasted for over three months. At one point, the coughing got so bad that I pulled a chest muscle. Unfortunately, despite the tragic nature of my grievous injury, the fact that I strained my pectorals simply by coughing served to be a source of countless ridicule and mockery by my bosses and peers. For those that laugh and do not understand, I can only say this: you use your pecs for a TON of things, man. One doesn't realize how vital your pecs are to daily living until they gets pulled, so maybe you should pull your pecs and try living life normally before you laugh!


Then last year, I contracted a flu so virulent that I actually thought that I was possibly going to die. My throat that was so sore that each time I drank water, it felt as if someone was scraping my throat from the insides with a fruit peeler.


I'm sure there were other maladies in the previous years but I'm an old man whose memory has failed him.


I have chosen to take precautions this year. I now wash my hands around ninety-percent of the time before I eat. Unfortunately, I still have managed to come down with a sore throat and cough. I've also come to learn something interesting and somewhat lamentable about my body and that is that apparently there are no oil glands in my hands. It sounds weird, but it's true. My hands are now drier than the Sahara because of the soap that I have used to wash my hands and now my hands are more delicate than silk. The current tally of the new year thus far: one sore throat and one pair of old lady's hands and so it seems that I am doomed to suffer during the early months of every new year. Inevitably, inexorably. Regardless of what precautions I take, I cannot escape the rolling tides of futility.