Being Sick In Paradise

I never get sick. I'm lucky that way, I guess. No colds, no flu. Plenty of hangovers, okay, but those are self-inflicted. And it's not that I'm an ironman or anything; I'm most definitely not. I just don't like being sick. When you're single and don't have someone to take care of you, being sick in bed is just not a attractive option.

We had guests down this past week. One by one, they were felled by a mysterious and nasty virus or something - a 36-hour bug of some sort that's been going around all of Guanaja. Both of my foremen were hit, as well as the toddler child of one of our housekeeping staff, who had to go to a doctor on the mainland. As our guests succumbed, it had them confined to their rooms where they could be close to a bathroom. I watched with a sort of detached smugness. Heh, *I* wasn't going to get sick, oh no.

Oh yes.

He is human after all, folks. It hit me like a ton of bricks Thursday afternoon. Whoa, not fun. Friday dawned picture-perfect, a Chamber-of-Commerce day, maybe one of the prettiest days Guanaja has ever had. Ever. But between the puking and the...well, I'll spare you the details but it was pretty gross, I barely noticed. I couldn't drag myself out of bed until nearly midday, which is simply unheard of for me. But Friday is payday for the guys, and they don't care that I'm sick, or even dead - they want their money! I thought about going over to the worksite in my unshaven, unshowered, smelly state, but the guys would just think I was trying to be more like them. (OW! I did *not* say that.)

So it's Friday night and I'm finally feeling better. But food and drink are the farthest things from my mind, so I must still be at least a little sick. And it sucks, because when you're sick in Guanaja, you can't enjoy paradise.