Yes, the unbelievable has happened. I have contracted chicken pox.
To get it at this stage of my life! Even Piers is laughing at me saying I’m so cute-obsessed that even the diseases I get have to be cute.
What rubbish? There is nothing cute about chicken pox, I told him, for it is the ugliest, most evil disease. But he argued that only little children get it usually, therefore it’s cute.
Why is it happening to me, then? What the hell, you stupid poxes?
It’s like these Chickenpox-men from outer space have decided to land on my body to have a picnic. They’re celebrating some alien festival by having a week-long party and the whole bloody colony is invited.
At first, they send a small expedition team of maybe five to test the water, so to speak. These brave pioneers, upon finding the land fertile and the water fresh and unpoisoned, ring home eagerly to mobilise the rest of the colony.
They start coming in droves, the quickest ones getting to pick choice spots around the body. But there are plenty of good spots to go around, so there is no need to fight. The whole body is an endless field of fun and sunshine all for the taking. They even bring camping equipment to make it a nice holiday.
“Look, Ted, let’s set up our tents next to the navel. We can play bouncing castle in it after our picnic!”
Ted and his friend are soon joined by more friends, who set up more tents and mats around haphazardly. It’s a celebration, folks! Come, have fun and don’t worry about anything! Bring your old, ailing grandparents and newborn babies, too, why not? The more the merrier!
And then, inevitably, some of them wander up to the face.
“Come quick, Amy, I have found us the perfect lookout point for our picnic! The view up there is gorgeous!”
While Amy is swooning at her oh-so-romantic beau, my brain is going, “No, nooooooooooo. Anywhere but my nose!”
Or my cheeks, for the matter.
Or my whole bloody face, you poxy vermin!
But the Chickenpox-men (and -women) don’t care. The whole point of their existence is to have a bloody picnic on my body and face. They just plonk themselves right down anywhere they like and then text their friends to hurry up and join in the fun.
Between the crazy itch and the disfigurement (and the fear that, if I so much as sneezed the wrong way, the disfigurement would become permanent), I am finding it hard to keep my sanity.
My flu isn’t getting any better after one whole week of holing myself up at home and surviving on oatmeal and honey drinks. I haven’t gotten much quality sleep, what with the painful throat, coughing, sore intestines (from coughing), blocked nose and my chronic neck pains.
And stupid university students who walk past the apartment every night to go to the bars and clubs in the town centre.
These nincompoops are worse than the Chickenpox-men because I know the Chickenpox-men will soon get tired of revelling and go home to Chickenpox Land.
These university students are there night after night, year after year. There’s a large university hostel near my apartment, so that’s where they come from. No matter what day it is, no matter what unearthly time of the night, they’re outside my window singing drunken songs at the top of their voices.
Sometimes they don’t just walk past. Sometimes they stick around the carpark just across my apartment and hold ear-popping rock concerts.
I am not exaggerating. This morning, Thursday, 4:10 am, group of blokes singing in unison loud enough to wake the dead. The ones who can’t sing are laughing their asses off, trying to drown the singing with their laughter, but it’s a tough fight.
This goes on every night between 11 pm and 6 am, with different groups of students streaming past every so often. Nobody has put a stop to this for goodness knows how long despite the fact that there are like 30 affected apartments between the hostel and the city of sin.
I don’t know why. There’s even a police station smack in the middle of the path, but I guess the police knock off work at 5 pm like everyone else does in this country.
I can understand the fun of drunken romps, but have none of these people yet realised that they’ve been doing it in a residential area, which apartments are stood out in the open right in their faces?
The amount of partying these kids do is unbelievable. I mean, never mind their studies, they can flunk their asses big time and live on government welfare for the rest of their lives, but what about their livers?
Oh, yeah, healthcare is free in this country so that’s covered, too.
I guess there is no reason not to party yourself to your grave, then.
Piers and I have been talking about moving out to a nice big house some time in the future and leasing this apartment out, but I’d feel really bad for the future tenants who would have to put up with this insanity.
Oh well, at least they won’t be having chicken pox, too. That much one can be thankful for.
Not for me. I thought I’d already gone through hell week (with the flu) but now it’s beginning all over again, meaner and poxier.
