Monday, July 02, 2007

Cough.

Dr. Christine YangWhat's little, stuffed, bovine, and can be described using the title of a Michael Moore movie? No, it's not my sister and her stuffed rabbit Roger...it's me, Sicko himself, battling a raw red sore throat, dripping mucus, and a hacking (and yet "productive") cough at all hours of the day! (I'm sure that's more information that you ever needed to know about me.) So instead of being a small bull today, I'm also a little ho(a)rse. Ha ha ha ha cough cough COUGH COUGH COUGH CHOKE CHOKE COUGH! (wheeze, gasp, pant) Okay. I'm fine now. (cough)

I just got back from my kindly stuffed animal doctor (doing intern work at the Doll Hospital) who pulled up my shirt and listened to my chest with her stethoscope and went "Hmmmmmm" a lot. I explained I had been looking on the internet and thought I might have bronchitis, which is not, as I had thought at first, a side dish to those big BBQ ribs you get at that Flintstones's drive-inn diner, but which is an infection that causes hacking cough with sputum. Then I looked up "sputum," and I wished I hadn't.

Anyway, kindly Dr. Yang said I had a lot of mucus in there with my beans and fluff, but she poo-pooed my amateur diagnosis and said it might be allergies or something less severe, and she gave me a prescription for some ultra-high powered antibiotics which apparently are the Kal-El of antibiotics: they're so powerful against bacteria that after five days of these you can't even eat a spoonful of yoghurt without it dissolving off your spoon before it gets in your mouth. She also poked me in the tummy and said I should cut down on the candy beans.

So now I'm lying in bed with a cup of orange juice and I'm taking my temperature every five minutes to see if it changes at all. I took my antibiotics and after not sleeping most of the night because I kept waking up coughing and choking (not fun!), I'm gonna take a little nap. What does that mean for you? Well, first of all, don't let me breathe on you. Second, "A Wodehouse a Week" will be delayed one day, but, to paraphrase my favorite alces alces, "Tomorrow fer shure!" I'm certain you will all agree it's worth the wait and hope that the slight delay doesn't disenchant you.

Oh, and before I drift off, just a tiny bit of comic book commentary so you don't feel completely foolish for coming here today:
Captain America's Funeral

1. Help me identify Cap's pallbearers here. From left to right: Ben Grimm, Rick Jones (?), T'Challa, Carol Danvers, Sam Wilson, Tony Stark. Tony Stark? Whoa, there's gonna be some awkward moments over the potato salad later, isn't there?
2. Number two is Rick Jones, is it? He should be a pallbearer, right?
3. Why must it always rain at a superhero funeral? Can't at least one of them catch a break and get a nice day?
4. Make sure you seal the tomb well so that Lex Luthor doesn't try to steal the body, guys!
5. Wouldn't this be a wonderful moment for Nick Fury to come back?

Cough! See ya tomorrow.


14 comments:

Kevin Church said...

I think that's Rick Jones in the ??? slot, looking like Spanky for some reason.

Anonymous said...

Is there some reason why T'Challa is in costume?

Anonymous said...

What? They couldn't have Storm make it nice sunny day?

Bully said...

Is there some reason why T'Challa is in costume?

I would guess that as a foreign dignitary, he considers his Black Panther costume state robes. I'm not as up on the BP mythology especially in recent years, but it always seemed, even back in the Kirby days, to be treated as more of a ceremonial costume than just superhero garb.

Carol also seems to be wearing her mask. I'm not certain of Ms. Marvel's status these days; is she the only one of the costumed heroes there whose civilian identity is not known?

Here's the sad thing. I useta know all this stuff like that back of my hoof, thanks to reading nearly every book and the OHOTMU books. The MU has passed me by, however, and I'm all at sea.

I was also thinking either Hank Pym or Janet van Dyne should have been a pallbearer, but this doesn't seem a bad assortment, although Tony's presence is apt to cause some controversy.

The next meme in the blogosphere: who would be the pallbearers at any given hero's funeral (pick six).

Anonymous said...

Wouldn't this be a wonderful moment for Nick Fury to come back?

Only if he does it in classic Nick Fury style.

Anonymous said...

Man, I hope Nick Fury never comes back. He's a lot more fun as the mysterious, secret guy living between the margins. I'm not a huge fan of the modern MU, but I think underground Fury is definitely one of the things they've gotten right.

Hawkeye and Bucky would both have made good Cap pallbearers, but they're not around, so this group works okay for me.

S Bates said...

battling a raw red sore throat, dripping mucus, and a hacking (and yet "productive") cough at all hours of the day!

Sounds like the common cold to me. Although, if you've got some mucus in your fluffy lungs then you might have a bit of a chest infection (hence the anitbiotics).

Anyway, get well soon little stuffed Bull!

SallyP said...

Hacking and wheezing was probably not the sort of birthday present you were expecting. I do hope you feel better soon.

Yes, that IS a rather awkward grouping for pallbearers. Isn't Stark actively trying to hunt down a few of those people?

Luke said...

Hope you feel better, Bully!

And yeah, Storm couldn't make it clear skies? She did that for Scott and Jean's wedding back in the day. And maybe if Cap's body is stolen from his tomb, this story might not be so depressing. Then again, this is Marvel, so...

Anonymous said...

Ms. Marvel's identity is publicly known; she just likes wearing the mask.

Harvey Jerkwater said...

Hmmm...Cap's pallbearers...who else could they use?

--Bucky/Winter Soldier, Spider-Man, and Nick Fury are all on the run.
--Thor is dead, or at least he hasn't come back in time to tote the Captain's cadaver.
--Jack Monroe/Nomad is dead. Well, as dead as superheroes get these days.
--Sharon Carter? Seeing as how she's the one who killed him, she probably wouldn't care to do this.
--Didn't Hank Pym get blow'd up recently?
--The Hulk's busy stomping the world.
--Namor is persona non grata in the United States again, isn't he?
--Isn't the Vision still a heap of debris? Scarlet Witch missing in Eastern Europe?
--Is Hawkeye still dead?

Jeebus, quite a list. Tony seems almost a default choice.

Plus, as the new Mighty Bigwig of SHIELD and a mover-n-shaker of America, he'd force his way onto coffin detail. I suspect he bumped the Wasp off the list.

(Ye gods, this was nerdy even for me.)

Anonymous said...

All current continuity aside, the pallbearers should be Bucky, Falcon, Rick Jones, Nick Fury, Hawkeye and Thor.

Also, as retired miltary, shouldn't Carol be in uniform?

Anonymous said...

I am pround of my wife for addressing this issue nicely when last I whined that "I'm tired of superheroes showing up for funerals and weddings in their costumes! Wear a mask if you have to, but buy a suit, people!"

She hypothesized that the superhero costume is a metahuman version of the armed services dress uniform. It counts as formal attire and even overrides the tuxedo as appropriate formalwear. So as jarring as it is to see bright, primary colors at a funeral, it is nonetheless appropriate. Though Black Panther's costume does not fall under the "bright, primary colors" issue, it is still a superhero costume.

Perhaps Storm made it rain.

Anonymous said...

In an issue of Avengers they were having a fancy shin dig par-tay, and Rage was worried about not being dressed up enough. Someone (can't recall who) explains to him that the costume of a super hero is equivalent to a miltary uniform or something...

And then Sandman tells him that Jarvis might be able to hook him up with a clip on bow tie.

Was D-Man at the funeral? Jarvis?