I’ve been pretty sick for about a week now.  I can fight through it for a few hours at a time, to do the show in the morning, or to join the Hosers on Friday night for our big trivia event.  (We did quite well, for a bunch of folks thrown together at the last moment – still waiting to find out if we beat the team our office sent.)

     The thing is, the rest of my family is of course very sick also.  My wife fought through it yesterday to get a half day’s work in, but was distracted enough by the illness that she took all the car keys with her.  So I had a last-minute panic trying to get to my live commercial at the leather blowout sale at Westgate at 11:00 yesterday morning.  I got a ride from my mother-in-law’s boyfriend at the last second, and made it just in time.

     Then, after the event, there was another scramble (as I still had no car) to get downtown where I was hosting a gala at the NAC for Operation Come Home.  I managed to get to my wife’s work and get a car (and a haircut and a shower) just in time to make it downtown – where I was confronted with the crowds preparing for the Santa Claus parade.  I tried a bunch of different roads, and after an hour of stagnant traffic, I parked at about Metcalfe and the Queensway and walked the rest of the way to the NAC.

     Now that they’ve changed the time of the Santa Claus Parade, the crowd is different as well.  Bailey, who works at OCH and is one of the best looking women in Ottawa, got caught in the parade traffic also, and had to get out of her taxi and walk the last three blocks in her little evening dress.  It was like walking through a construction site, with the catcalls and comments – you didn’t get that too often when the Santa Claus parade was at 11:00 and went down Bank street!

     The gala was about an hour and a half late getting started, as everyone was caught in the same ludicrous traffic I was.  Good event – Rumbavan played Cuban music, Jana and Greg taught everyone the meringue, and lots of terrific silent auction items up for grabs.  Three OCH youth, Troy and Rick and Tanner, spoke about the influence OCH has had on their lives, and did a great job.  I huddled in the corner and tried not to infect anyone.

     I left as early as I could, getting home to my sick family.  Of course, that meant I had to walk thirty blocks in the sub-zero temperature, and by the time I got back to my car I was coughing and hacking like never before.  So bad, in fact, that on the way home I had to pull the car over and vomit.  I’m throwing up, car still running, leaning out the drivers’ side, and two cops go by.  I had visions of breathalyzers and handcuffs, and I was actually disappointed when they kept driving.

     On my way home, I stopped at a drug store to get a bunch of cold medicine for myself and my wife.  The lady in front of me in line noticed it all, and said “bad cold, eh?”  I said “it sure is”.  And she stepped away from me like she’d been shot.  These are her exact words – “oh my god, you sound awful!  I’ve never heard anyone with a cold so bad!  You know – you actually sound like that guy on the radio, it’s so bad!”

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