Imitation of Husband When Sick
I‘d like to share a little about my husband’s behavior while he’s sick. First, he believes you MUST be extremely warm to heal from a cold. Therefore he wears a beanie at all times while sick. That’s correct. This includes during summer, in public, and while he sleeps. He pulls it way down over his eyes. He stays in bed with the covers pulled up to his nose. Oh, he also leaves wads of toilet paper in his nose. Please see the visual I created using a Spiderman doll that looks exactly like husband while sick–except there are no nostrils into which I can stuff toilet paper wads–try to imagine that part:
Does this look frightening to you? My standards are so low at this point that it almost looks normal to me now. I even go out in public with him looking like this in the summer. Sure, it’s embarrassing when people stare, but at those moments, I convincingly pretend to be alone. No one knows. And besides, they walk away so quickly when they see him coming.
Oh, there’s also the way he ACTS when he has a cold. He can’t breath. His head hurts so badly he can’t move–even in dire emergencies, like when something’s burning on the stove downstairs, and one of the kids starts screaming as if injured upstairs. See how one person (me) can’t handle both incidents effectively, but two people could? Too bad. My husband can’t move. He has a COLD (also known as “possible kidney infection”).
I think the most annoying is that when I am sick, of course, he thinks I’m faking it and totally ignores me. I hope I never die while I have a cold, because if I do, I will remain that way unchecked on for quite some time. I find that extremely irritating.
I have heard that many guys have trouble handling colds. It would be very encouraging to hear that they also wear beanies, leave toilet paper up their noses, and ignore their wives’ colds completely. This would mean that my husband is perfectly normal after all.
May 20th, 2008 at 2:57 am
Note to those with sensitive stomachs: This comment contains offensive material.
Well, my husband doesn’t wear a beanie. But he has a horrible horrible horrible habit.
When he is throwing up (chucking, hurling, vomiting, barfing, whatever it is in your corner of the world) he has to make AS MUCH NOISE AS POSSIBLE. Yes. it’s like this. I’M THROWING UP HERE. CAN YOU HEAR, I’M SICK. YES, I’M STILL THROWING UP, CAN YOU HEAR THE EXTREMELY LOUD GROANING NOISE I AM MAKING IN MY CHEST SO THAT YOU KNOW THAT ME, YOUR POOR HUSBAND/FATHER IS BEING EXTREMELY SICK.
And yes, he does also lie in bed, and moan, and sleep all day. Yet I (and I’m guessing all mothers) would, on our death bed, have to get up and wipe our 3 year old childs bottom.
Life is just not fair.
May 20th, 2008 at 7:05 am
well…I dont have a HUSBAND, but I do have a FATHER and a SON, and they BOTH act like that when they are sick… minus the beanies!! (thats too funny)
May 20th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Thank you. I was beginning to feel that perhaps other guys DO wear beanies when sick. Judging from your posts, it seems that my original assumption was correct–and NO ONE does this.
My GOSH. I can NOT imagine dealing with the exaggerated throwing up as a method of getting attention and pity. In fact, when my husband is sick, I think, “Well, maybe I can just avoid him by staying out of our room this entire week.” You can’t even do THAT, you poor soul!!!
May 20th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
We call those hats touques. I think it’s strictly a Canadian thing.
My husband gets a cold…and pretty much complains constantly from there on out. Of course, he get’s ZERO sympathy until the question “Have you taken any pills for it?” is answered with a yes. Usually about 4 days in he gets it and takes a pill - and then I pat him on the head.
Have you ever noticed how Mom’s usually get the freaky mutated gene after it’s been through every other family member? We all just had that bad flu/cold thing that’s going around…they got it for a week…I end up in hospital and 6 weeks later I’m almost back to normal. ARGH!
May 20th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
OMG! Never fear Holly I’m hear to tell you that you are not alone.
My husband does the EXACT SAME thing. He wears a Beanie and layers the sweatshirts and lays under the covers moaning. And, he refuses to eat! He says his mama always told him to starve a cold.
When I’m sick? He laughs and tells me I’m faking like this is junior high or something.
Also, to the previous commenter - my husband does the puke thing too. It is so bad I have to leave the house for fear of chain reaction puking. I’m a chain reaction puker so even hearing makes me want to puke.
May 20th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
I’m soooo relieved.
I’m also happy to say that thanks to your comments, I have revised all comments on “tobagans” to read “beanies” as apparently all other people on earth refer to this type of hat.
It feels good to be normal for once. he he he
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:53 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXLHWmjA5IE
I assume you’ve seen this vide before. A perfect example of a sick man. My husband, and I believe almost every husband I know (not all mine) are the same. My husband sometimes does the beanie thing but he layers his clothes, walks around with his shoulders hunched, as though that will help get better, and takes my hand, places it on his forehead and says “do I have a fever?” He then coughs exaggeratedly and loudly all day. If I suggest he take something or go see the doctor he says “I don’t want to know what’s wrong with me”.
They’re all the same. They’re a special breed. We women, if we want to be sick we have to book ourselves into a hotel room all alone because no one else in the house is going to care. We instinctively know that so we don’t bother informing anyone else. We know it’s pointless because they are going to be suffering something far worse than could ever strike us. They won’t even be sick until we are then it will be something they’re likely to die from.
May 25th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Yep, definitely. TP up the nose too.
June 19th, 2008 at 12:17 am
It’s good to know my husband is not the only one with disease like symptoms when it really is just a winter cold….
September 1st, 2008 at 3:50 pm
A lot of this sounds like my dear husband, too, except for the beanie part, but the toilet paper and fear of dying, yes.
(He also rolls–when not sick–long, thin, flimsy ear-cleaners out of tissues and leaves them lying around. I cannot for the life of me imagine how they do any good as substitute Q-tips, but they are CHEAP! Anyone else’s husband do this?)
But I digress: If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Being prone to occasional bouts of nausea and v-ing*, which I hate more than almost any other type of ailment, I one day tried making the horrific noise DH does when vomiting. To my surprise, it helped me get the v-ing over, and thus end the suffering, much faster than I would have otherwise. I am going to use it again. Better than a finger down my throat.
The sound also brought DH to the bathroom door in consternation. He seemed to be afraid that I might die! In the middle of v-ing, I had to reassure him that I wouldn’t, and I also had to choose whether to join in the usual conversation he starts whenever I am ill (during which we hash over “what food could have brought on the trouble this time”–and I know he will never let me eat whatever it is in peace again), or else to repeatedly moan, “Oh, no, please! I just can’t bear to think about food right now.” (It takes several repetitions and he is only appeased by assurances that I am quite willing to take the subject up some other time.
It feels to good to get these things off my chest to an understanding audience! I’ve enjoyed the blog and all your comments!
*Middle letters left out in affectionate memory of my dear mother, who could not bear to hear even this medical term, much less “barf” or “upchuck”!