I feel terrible because… well… I feel terrible.  For the past 4 days I’ve played host to not only my in-laws, but also to the mother of all cold germs.  Seriously.  She’s made herself quite comfortable in my sinuses with the occasional weekend trip to my lungs, and I don’t think she has any intention of leaving anytime soon.

So aside from emerging from the warm cocoon of my bedcovers every so often to take a soothing, steamy shower or make much-needed football food (while donning plastic gloves and a grade-a surgical mask, of course), I’ve behaved much like an antisocial hermit, my days revolving around bouts of coma-like sleep interspersed with 30-60 minute increments of Flip this House and The Property Ladder watched through a semi-drunken haze as I take nips from a bottle of cough syrup.

But I have to (sheepishly) admit that there’s at least one good thing that’s come from having this cold while Justin’s parents are in town.  Right now, this very minute, Justin is driving them up to Sanford to go to church.  And while I wasn’t planning on going anyway, which I’m pretty sure they all knew, this cold has given me the ability to stay in bed while they got ready to leave, thus avoiding the entire awkward send-off:

KATIE
(still in pajamas, hair
tousled, sips her coffee)

Well, you kids have fun at church…

IN-LAWS
(dressed in Sunday
Best, fiddle with keys)

Silence

KATIE
(picks a piece of
lint off her t-shirt)

Umm… I hear it’s supposed to be
a great sermon today.  Or is it a
Homily?  The thing the guy gives?
I mean the priest.  Or is it Pastor?
Shit.

IN-LAWS

Silence

KATIE
(smiles meekly)

Have a great time.

IN-LAWS
(exiting STAGE LEFT)

We’ll pray for you.

END SCENE

Okay, I’m exaggerating.  Obviously.  I mean, I wouldn’t make coffee until after they left because they’re not allowed to eat or drink an hour before receiving Communion, which is what they do every week in Catholic church, and I wouldn’t want to rub it in.

But if I were going with them, maybe I would make coffee first since it’s okay for me to drink it since I’m not Catholic and therefore not allowed to receive Communion and therefore more likely to fall asleep during mass (or is it a sermon? shit.) since I’m forced to sit on the bench like some unruly student while all of the good boys and girls stand in line to get a cookie and stare at me with sympathy because I’m going to Hell and there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it.

But really.  I think Justin’s parents are fairly okay with the fact that I don’t go to church.  I’ve attended with them before, and I’ve always felt like someone shoved me onto stage in the middle of the play and no one gave me the lines.  I mean, everyone else knows when to stand, when to sit, when to sing, what to say, while I stumble around a haphazard half-a-second behind everyone else trying not to embarrass them more than absolutely necessary.

So maybe this cold thing is all for the best.  I don’t need to embarrass my in-laws with my church ignorance, and I can blame this entire post on my consumption of excessive amounts of cough syrup should it fall into the wrong hands.  And that’s all I can really ask for, anyway.

Amen.