Overcoming your Summer Sickness

Somehow you done goofed and got sick in summer. Like girls talking to you in high school, it's not supposed to happen. It should be impossible. Everyone else is running and giggling and playing in the sun, but you're a freak, an anomaly. You've somehow managed to beat the odds. Congrats. You have the flu.

Normally, the best thing about getting sick is that it does most of the work. As invasive cells ravage your body, all you have to do is: 1) Understand what's going on with your body and 2) Alter your behavior until cured. That's pretty much it. In the winter at least. But not in the summer. Hell no. Throw that garbage out the window. Summer Sick has its own rulebook. It's a little confusing at first, but if you look around, you'll notice that everyone is already following these easy steps. So if you want to kick the flu and enjoy the summer before the official humidity reading is "Mouth of a Dragon in a Vore Fan-Fic," then do what every other sick idiot does and you'll be feeling better in no time.

1) Understand what's going on with your body
Nope. Not between June and August. The most important thing to beating Summer Sickness is absolute denial. In the winter, you'll want to read WebMD and overreact. You'll want to call your mom and tell her that you have an HIV/Cancer lovechild growing on your liver. That's fine. If nothing else, it's a nice way to spice up the holidays. But now? In the summer? You aren't ill, buddy, it's just some sort of acute allergies. That's all. Not a cold or the flu or one of those pig bird concoctions. Just allergies. See what I did there? You need to step right up to the illness and look it in the face. But not like two sweaty boxers look at one another the day before punching the snot out of one another. No, you need to look at your illness the way a blind syphilitic bum gazes off in the distance as he pushes a cart full of cans. What illness?

Once you've done that, don't think about it anymore. Don't worry about Claritin or going to a medical professional, just get creative and start making up new allergies for your symptoms. A sudden sensitivity to gazpacho gives you a temperature of 105. You vomit and pass out in a cold sweat because of a baseball allergy. Cotton candy dust is making you wheeze at the fair. Air conditioning knocked you into a sudden fevered hallucination. It doesn't matter that it makes no sense. Allergies are complicated!

2) Alter your behavior until cured
Stay home? Have a sick day? Are you serious? Does it look like February? You suffered all winter for warm weather, and you're not going to waste it now. Inside your home is the last place you should be. If you want to overcome Summer Sickness, it's vital that you don't change any plans. Don't skip work. Don't wash your hands more frequently. Don't bail on meeting your friends at a busy happy hour. Just head on over to the bar, sip on some IPAs, and stop worrying about the potentially disastrous live virus you're dripping all over the place.

Because ultimately the summer is a time for fun and kicking back, and nothing kills the mellow more than consideration for the health of others. So even if a thick yellow crust films over your eyes, just wipe that stuff away and keep giving out a ton of high fives to strangers. Don't worry. Allergies aren't contagious.

– Ian "Salmon Season" Golding (@iggolding)