Completely Cured or Too Ill to Care

Pre-amble: This post is about one-quarter observation and three-quarters self-pity. Be warned.

Much like in your office, I bet, we have a "discard pile" or "freebie box" here at The Job. It's parked in a corner of the mail room. People attempting to clean their offices will dump stacks of compact discs and other ephemera, and in short order, the scavengers gather like vultures. I've prized some decent finds off the discard pile in the past. There are, of course, fewer things more gratifying than finding a disc in the "up for grabs" box that you were planning on going out and paying for. These days, however, there are fewer and fewer discs I'm actively looking for and/or curious about. Moreover, as I've laboriously detailed elsewhere on this weblog, I should be concentrating my efforts on getting rid compact discs these days, rather than collecting more.

I staggered into the office this morning quite ill-advisedly ummm….ill. The sniffle that was only mildly annoying over the weekend has blossomed into a robustly lustrous chest-cold. Compounding this is the fact that I've yet again --- WAIT FOR IT --- bitten my tongue, transforming my every breath, swallow and attempt at speech into a roiling universe of searing pain. And since I'm already complaining, I might as well also point out that my tinnitus is still screaming extra loud these days and that I seem to have either a loose filling or possibly a cavity in the works. All in all, my physical being is evidently at war with itself, and I'm feeling pretty cruddy as a result.

In any case, as I blearily shuffled into the greenhouse-like news room (after foolishly braving the arctic temperatures outside this morning), I couldn't help noticing a brand new crate in the news room, spilling over with spankin' new compact discs, free for the taking. It was all I could do to raise an eyebrow.

But I didn't rummage through it. I frankly couldn't be bothered.

This either means I've successfully weaned myself from my music-hording habits, or that I'm about to drop dead.

Place your bets.