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I boarded the plane at LAX Friday night feeling great. Rested--though I was about to get on the red-eye and wouldn't be feeling so when I eventually landed at the Emmet County Regional Airport--and looking forward to a week of relaxation with the family, progressive dining with the friends, and winter frolicking with the elements.

It was about two hours into the flight when I offered up a few short coughs and another hour later when I suddenly realized that I was That Passenger--the one who is sitting right next to you and coughing, sneezing, and generally spreading disease. Honestly though, at the time, it wasn't that bad and I thought that it was probably just my tired throat's reaction to dry, recycled air. Little did I know that at that very moment, festering under my oily-dry combination skin was the dreaded and infectious I.O.U.P.A.O.D. (Influenza Of Unusual Potency And Occassional Death), or as I like to call it, Yoopod. (Also sometimes referred to as Death Flu.)

Upon touchdown on Saturday afternoon, I was tired (hadn't slept since Thursday night) and feeling oddly coughy. (Like the drink only not spelled the same.) My parents put me right to bed, in that eventual way parents have of wanting to first know about your life, job prospects and whatever happen to that boyfriend anyway, and around 2am, it hit. Yoopod descended on me like a fat kid on pinata candy. The coughs that racked my chest shook my very bones and tore my throat to pieces. Chills. I had the chills so badly I thought the down comforter I was wrapped in was a wet, cold towel that didn't reach my shins. I couldn't even get a word out of my mouth without coughing. A fever errupted in me and spiked to 104 degrees. It would not drop below 101 for a further three days. I was dying in my bed and no one even knew about it.

The next morning, no one came to check on me because of the arrival of the family's first grandchild. The main attraction of this holiday season, all eyes were on him. No one would notice my absence until 12:30pm the next day. When my mom finally walked into my room to bring me a cough drop because my coughs were waking the baby, she found me shaking but sweating, fevered, and to the point where I literally could not speak more than one word every five seconds. I literally didn't have the energy. Or the vocal chords. She immediately ran downstairs, kicked my sister, brother in law and nephew out of the house for the next four days, and called the doctor. She felt awful (in the empathetic, emotional sense--she'd been wise enough to get the flu shot earlier in the year) and took very, very good care of me for the duration of my illness.

In all seriousness, I have never, ever been that sick in my entire life. Ever. I consider myself a pretty healthy person. Whenever I called in sick to work, it was never really that bad in retrospect. I could speak in complete sentences and make trips to the bathroom without having to stop and rest against the hallway twice en route. I could manage to make my own food, and didn't have to lean against the counter just to hold myself up in order to brush my teeth. Unfortunately, I now know the true meaning of being sick.

The worst part was, I couldn't sleep. I had fevered dreams that my bed was on the top of a mountain and that every fifteen minutes Carol Kane (ala Princess Bride) would yell "Humperdink, Humperdink, Humperdink!" and I would wake.

I am now on anti-virals and anti-biotics and anti-red-eye-flight-rampages, and am not, in fact, dead, as I had predicted I would be. There were a few lulls in sickness where I did get some sleep, and even felt well enough to walk to the computer to empty out my junk mail and post a message here, but those were few and far between. I still have a rattle-y cough, a congested nose, and a really pissed-off 'tude that I spent all but Christmas and the day after in bed sick, wasting away my only vacation. In fact, because I didn't get my vacation's worth, I extended my ticket and will now be flying back to LA on New Year's Day.

Just when we all thought my year couldn't get much worse, this is how 2003 ends.

I have high hopes for 2004. It really couldn't possibly be worse than 2003.