When the Flu Strikes, Laughter Is the Best Medicine

When you're flat on your back with the flu, the ceiling becomes a blank slate on which you can write your thoughts.  Still bedbound on day five of what experts say is usually a three-day event (I would love to personally update these "experts"), I have moved on from feeling sorry for myself to thinking about the advantages of this dramatic interruption in my life's reel. I found 10 benefits to offset the inconvenient and uncomfortable minuses:

1. You save on groceries.

2. You lose weight quickly.

3. You get to play hooky. Once friends learn you are sick, no one wants you to attend a meeting or a party. And you don't feel a trace of guilt for abandoning your exercise program.

4. You don't have to make excuses for wearing your pajamas at 2 p.m.

5. You can manipulate expressions of sympathy from your friends.

6. You can catch up on your reading.

7. You can persuade your spouse to wait on you hand and foot.

8. You realize that, however important you think your work is, the world gets along just fine without you.

9. You don't have to prepare meals or do housework.

10. You aren't tempted by the hamburger or pizza commercials on television.

Don't get me wrong. I would much rather have avoided this unpleasant drama. But since the flu is my fate, I intend to take advantage of the situation. Who knows? I may even spend a few extra days in bed just for the fun of it.

More on the flu can be found here.

Photo: spcbrass on Flickr