Some time around the start of the new year, while looking at the calendar and making an honest endeavor to plan ahead for certain “special dates” during 2012, I made a point of asking my beloved wife Melissa if there was anything special she wanted me to get her for Valentine’s Day.


“Give me something I don’t really need,” she responded. 


So I gave her the flu.


Okay, that’s not exactly how it happened. I did get the flu last week, and poor Melissa ended up coming down with it after nursing me back to health. But she didn’t have quite as bad a case of the bug as I did (not that we were competing, you understand), and by Valentine’s Day she was showing far better signs of being on the mend than I had been after the same amount of time.


When the bug hit me in the early morning hours of last Wednesday it hit fast and it hit HARD. I honestly can’t remember the last time I felt anything close to that bad; except for the obligatory runs to the rest room I was off my feet until Monday morning, and even then I was still a little light-headed  and wobbly on my feet. I told the boss that morning that I wasn’t sure which was worse: the illness or the recovery.


Those five days were almost certainly as hard on the family as they were for me. Being a nurse, Melissa knew just what to do to take care of me... but, as usual whenever something like this happens, she did manage to get in a few teasing comments every now and then about what whimps men are when we get sick.


The bug hit Melissa equally hard at first, but thankfully seemed to pass a lot more quickly than it had for me. By Tuesday morning, in fact, I was beginning to wonder if maybe she didn’t let herself get sick on purpose just so she could prove once and for all that the so-called “fairer sex” is in fact made of much sturdier stuff than us poor menfolk. 


She denied the charge, of course. Well, what did I expect? It’s not like I was waiting for her to rub her hands together like a Bond villain and say something along the lines of. “Ah, at last you have discovered my diabolical intent!” 


Still, I couldn’t help noticing that familiar mischievous smile and twinkle in her eye...