I recently succumbed to the power of television advertising and purchased a Snuggie that I have been enjoying, despite the fact that I feel like I could wind up engulfed in flames at any moment. Thankfully, I don’t smoke, nor do I keep romantic scented candles around the apartment in hopes of enticing more people to visit. I don’t believe I’ve ever looked around my apartment and thought, “This place would be a lot more appealing to women if there were just a bit more fire around.” But as much as I enjoy lounging around on the couch, enveloped in fleece that might be flammable, I realized after a few days of enjoying the Snuggie that my apathy has reached a new level when I became too lazy to find the sleeves. More often than not, if I can’t locate the sleeves within a couple of seconds, I just say, “Hey, I’m not holding a baby or playing backgammon with a gorgeous blonde woman, so I think I’ll just use this as a combustible blanket.”
I’ve been using my Snuggie a lot lately because I’ve had a cold, and it does provide a certain level of coziness that you can only expect from a blanket with sleeves. But because I rarely get sick, my house is otherwise ill-equipped to treat many of the ailments associated with the common cold. I don’t have a lot of soup on hand, my refrigerator isn’t stocked with OJ and the only thing in my medicine cabinet is a plethora of unused dental floss due to my propensity to trick myself into thinking that I’ll floss more frequently after every dentist visit. After each appointment, I buy way too much floss, use it every day for a week and then forget about it until the week before the next visit. Of course, the dentist always asks, “Have you been flossing?” and I say, “Not as much as I should.” But don’t you think he already knows the answer? Can't we just stop the dance?
Anyway, this particular cold left me with a terrible runny nose, and I quickly became aware that another item I don’t have in my apartment is Kleenex. I started to use paper towels as a substitute, but it was too rough and my nose became red and irritated. Sadly, I too became irritated, so I switched to toilet paper, which is a lot softer. The problem with that was I didn’t like the look of having a roll of toilet paper sitting on my nightstand. I imagined Brendan coming over to do the podcast, looking in my bedroom, seeing the toilet paper and thinking, “What is going on in there?” Luckily, I did eventually venture out of the house to purchase Kleenex, because before long, I would have had to resort to using Swiffer sheets.
Since I’ve been sick, and this might be hard to believe, I’ve been watching a lot more TV than is my norm. One show that I just started watching is The Amazing Race, which as far as I can tell, is a reality show that challenges you to book air travel. The show this year features a deaf contestant, and they are really milking his triumph over adversity. Sure, I imagine this kid has had a rough life growing up, but I already knew that being deaf doesn’t prevent you from running, sitting in a rickshaw while wearing a funny hat, carrying cheese, or dressing up in traditional Indian clothing.
And even though the show will challenge you to make international travel arrangements, two flight attendants, who would seem to have the upper hand on the other competitors in this department, were recently eliminated. One of the flight attendants happened to be a single mom who “lives for her daughter,” but I’m somewhat skeptical of that since she left the kid at home to go compete on a reality show. I was told that they have an Amazing Race-type of competition every year in Chicago called City Chase, where pairs of people run throughout the city performing various challenges. I’m tempted to try it this year, but I’m more of an indoorsman, so I’m not sure I could be very successful. I wonder if they have a City Big Brother, where they force you to sit inside and do nothing except irritate other people? That, I’ll bet I can win.
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