h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It all began Saturday two weeks ago, when my mom sneezed into my soup and I spent the morning outside in the cold without a good hat.

The very next day I started with a runny nose and a horrible phlegmy cough. It was extremely disgusting and it worried my poor mother to death. Dad was less sympathetic because he knew I would have to miss school on Monday. Still, he took me to the doctor to see if she would declare me good to go. Instead I got a sentence of three days in bed. Three sick days. Sure, it sounds good but I had a VIRUS eating me inside out, the drugs were messing with my stomach, and I had fluids leaking out of everywhere. I couldn't even sleep well because the coughing was so bad.

Monday I just lay dead and ate my nasty medicine. Tuesday I tried to my homework, I truly did, but since I had a coughing fit every five minutes and a boogy coming out every thirty seconds the going was slow and I finally just collapsed in my ease chair. Since TV and the computer were forbidden at this time I listened nonstop to public radio. I learned that the news is given five to eight times a day but that the same report is repeated for almost 48 hours! And though I enjoy all the weeekend shows, the stuff during the week is very trite. It is always one story about a third world country followed by another story about someone in jail followed by an excerpt from an unknown author's memoir recalling how the holidays were always so great.

I had to make up three day's worth of homework Wednesday night. I was still very ill but guess what? My group for history never bothered to start the project due that Thursday. I spent half the night furiously typing my instant messages and eventually I gave up and let some other poor school chum finish the cruddy script.

That's not the worst part. The worst part was that I missed my mom's naturalization ceremony, when she became a US citizen. I was too sick to go to one of the most important days of my mommy's life. It's just too sad to think about.