The strange thing is, I don’t remember ever having had chicken pox, although if I scrunch up my face and squint my eyes and raise my eyebrows and concentrate very, very hard and even look a little like Fu Manchu (photo below), I think I remember one single pock mark on my arm when I was a child.
In summary, what goes around, comes around.
Also, last Wednesday evening we had a little mishap with the car. Not an accident. Not a collision. A mishap. I ran over the curb, make that curbs, on the median while making a left turn at an intersection at night. Mrs. RWP and I were tossed about a bit, but we were not hurt. Fortunately (a) we were wearing our seat belts and (b) the old Camry did not flip over. So we are none the worse for wear, though we each now sport a few more gray hairs than before.
But between the Wednesday evening mishap with the car and the Monday afternoon discovery of shingles, this is shaping up to be The Week That Was in the rhymeswithplague household.
I’ll keep you posted.
[Update, Feb. 27, 2013: It was most definitely shingles. To make it go away, my friendly doctor has prescribed a three-times-a-day-for-the-next-ten-days blue pill that is big enough to choke a horse. The pharmaceutical community calls it Valtrex. The active ingredient is valacyclovir hydrogen chloride and you have to drink lots of water along with it. When we lived in Florida, hydrogen chloride mixed with water produced hydrochloric acid, which is also called muriatic acid, which was used to remove all the muck and gunk from patios around swimming pools. Wish me luck. Keep me in your prayers. Cross your fingers. Send something up the flagpole and see if anybody salutes it. All of the above. I want to be rid of this stuff. --RWP]
