PAUL:	This week has been a rough one on me.  I've been out 
	for the count, sidelined, under the weather, on the DL, 
	unfit for action, out of circulation, rocked to my socks, 
	kayoed by some virulent bactereitis.

	A gruesome, euphemistically branded "cold" has been making 
	the rounds of the olde Towne recently and on Sunday last it 
	landed on my doorstep.  One disturbing aspect of this particular 
	bug is that it is the only one I know that is visible to the 
	naked eye.  The CDC in Atlanta has sent a team outfitted in 
	bubble suits to investigate.

	You can actually see this bug.  
	
	It shows up on surfaces first as a gooey film, then transforms 
	into a sooty substance, and, when, examined more closely, it 
	moves.  Wherever it is -hanging off doorknobs or loitering on 
	toilet seats -you can see it getting ready to attack you when 
	you're at your weakest.  Yewhh, it's hideous.

	Mom, whether through some 'defense of the ancients' or pure 
	orneriness, hasn't been laid low this season, or any winter in 
	my memory, by a hack, cough, spasm or chill.  I don't know if 
	it's something in her blood.  Maybe she's just immune to the 
	particular viral bacteriosis that's currently playing jet aircraft 
	fighter with my stomach.

	She must be some kind of medical freak that she hasn't been 
	stopped in her tracks like me by now.  She needs to be investigated.

	But me, I got to tell you, down I go like I've been pole-axed, 
	tased and pepper-sprayed all at the same time.

	The sweats, the shakes, the sore throat, the rumblings both 
	gaseous and liquid, frontal and ... rearal.  The only things 
	I've been able to concentrate on are the cryptic crossword and 
	Cecil Taylor improvisations, which, in my state, I've been 
	whistling around the house like pop tunes.
 
	And through it all, my Florence Nightingale, my Hana, my Nurse 
	Ratchet, has been my mom.

	Bowls of soup, warm wraps for my neck, tissues placed within 
	easy reach, extra comforters on the bed, pillows plumped, 
	Aspirin at regular intervals, supplies of cold water in a 
	bronzish lava glass on the night stand replenished regularly 
	with the stealth of a cat burglar, and always the question, 
	"Anything I can get for you, Paulie ?"

	God.  A nonagenarian, usually riddled with arthritis, addled 
	by modern life, perturbed by any inconvenience, now hocus-pocus, 
	abracadbra, mirabile visu, a willing servant, as it were, a 
	handmaid, an ... I have to admit, an angel.

	The guilt she's saddling me with on this one.  I guess I'm 
	stuck at home forever after I recover, being Catholic and all.

	Oh, wow, I don't know if I can do that.

	Between the bug and the mother, I'm dying here.  I don't need 
	either of them.

	What I think I really need is a bacteriectomy.

	Start shovelling snow without me, okay ?