For the last couple of days I've been suffering from the slightly sniffly, coughy cold that seems to be going around at the moment — manwritesblog flu, if you like.
And when people have asked me, in passing or by way of polite conversation, how I am, I've mentioned my cold and then for some reason felt it necessary to point out that I actually haven't been ill for ages and will probably kick this particular infection into touch very quickly.
And I've realised that have a strong (and as far as I can tell, irrational) belief that I am unusually resistant to infection. That my immune system is a high flyer in comparison to its disease-fighting peer group.
It is true that I only get ill once or possibly twice a year — certainly much more frequently than Bruce Willis in Unbreakable — but I can't believe that's particularly unusual and so I'm baffled as to where this viral vanity, this bacterial braggadocio, comes from.
I somehow picture my immune system (whatever that looks like — it's more than just white blood cells, right?) taunting the germs in other peoples' sneezes with chants of “Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough!”, or strutting round my body with some kind of bovver boy “What are you looking at?” attitude.
Other people harbour secret beliefs that they are unusually good at kissing, or finding things, or burping, or recognising songs, or holding their breath. Speaking personally, in addition to my unusual immuno-abundance, here are some other random, unfounded beliefs I appear to hold about myself:
- Although I'm not tremendously good at names, I'm excellent at remembering faces, i.e. I will know if I've seen you before and will eventually work out where
- I'm unusually good at spotting people who look like a cross between two famous people, e.g. “Look at him, he looks like the bastard love child of Matt Damon and Kelsey Grammer”
- Given pretty much any set of ingredients I can cook a passable meal
- Although I am rubbish at navigating and reading maps, I my raw sense of direction is very good — drop me in the middle of a forest and I'd find the best route out
- I can look at someone and within a split second tell you whether they are a fundamentally decent person or not
But none of these skills is a comfort while my immune system has been laid low by some everyday virus. But hang on, maybe it was some super-bug, that would have completely incapacitated, or even killed, a lesser individual, but is manifesting itself in me as a common cold.
That's it. It's the only plausible explanation.
I'm starting to feel better already.
Add Comment