M. Giant's
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Wednesday, August 21, 2002  

I’m fighting off a cold right now, and I think I’m losing. My sinuses keep trying to melt out of my nostrils, and the back of my throat feels like I’ve been juggling sandburrs with my uvula. Normally I wouldn’t fight it so hard, because I like getting a day off to stay in bed now and then. That’s not going to work this time, because I’m getting on a plane a week from today. I don’t even want to imagine the horror of dealing with cold symptoms on a plane. A guy my size barely has room to roll his eyes in an airplane seat, let alone burn through a box of Puffs while periodically undergoing bone-shaking nasal detonations.

So I’m fighting it. I’m taking vitamins, sipping honey tea with lemon (or maybe the other way around), getting back on my allergy meds, and of course, drinking lots of fluids.

Ah, yes, fluids. This is the one I’m most serious about right now. A few years ago, Trash was fighting a cold. A doctor gave her a rather unusual suggestion for an early remedy: eight glasses of water in three hours. Apparently drinking in such great volume over such a short period has the effect of completely flushing you out. It works best before the cold is fully entrenched in your system. That’s what I’m trying to do now. In case you’ve never tried it, it’s really hard.

As I type this, I’m two hours and sixty ounces into my little regimen. I know it’s sixty ounces because I have this big plastic mug that holds twenty-four ounces and I’m halfway through emptying it for the third time (in turn, I know the mug is twenty-four ounces because I used to mix entire cans of Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper in it. Cringe all you want, but it was pretty tasty and gave me a nice little caffeine boost on sleepy days). My only problem is that I don’t know how much “a glass” is supposed to be. Is it eight ounces, or twelve? Because there’s a big difference between sixty-four ounces and ninety-six, I can assure you. If it’s sixty, I’m almost done. If it’s ninety-six, I’ve got a mug-and-a-half to go. I don’t know if I can do another mug-and-a-half.

Already I’m feeling like a giant water sack. Sling me over the back of a mule and you’re ready to cross Death Valley. It’s a good thing my desk is so close to the restroom, because I’m going in there more frequently than a pregnant cat with a bad prostate sitting between a fountain and a river (I know most beings can’t be pregnant and have a prostate, bad or otherwise, but go with me here). I feel like Senator Kelly in the X-Men movie, right before he burst open on the table like a two-hundred-pound water balloon and became a mighty deluge that sluiced onto the floor and Halle Berry’s feet. Actually, my ears have already popped. That can’t be a good sign.

I’m sorry, I have to take a little break from typing for a while because my fingers are starting to prune from within. I’ve certainly never seen that before.

* * *

Well, I did it. I drank ninety-six ounces of water in three hours. That’s three quarters of a gallon. While this isn’t a stunt that’s likely to get me on Jackass, I’m going to feel like one if my cold is still here tomorrow. As it is, it’s hard not to feel self-conscious about the fact that I’m peeing a small bottle’s worth of clear, pure, distilled spring water every five minutes.

So if this didn’t work, I’m going to have no option but to dose myself up with as much cold medication as I can safely metabolize. Not that that will cure the cold. Not that that will even address the symptoms. It’ll just make me feel like a tiny little guy trying to go about his day inside an unwieldy, full-sized M. Giant suit. My face will still be sore and runny, but I won’t care because I’ll be a full six inches behind it. And my screaming sneezes will startle everyone but me, because everything will sound all distant and echo-y at the bottom of the snot-lined well that is my cranium.

Actually, everything kind of sounds that way now. Is there such a thing as water intoxication?

Wish me luck. Drink to my health. I’d do it myself, but that doesn’t seem like such a good idea for me right now.

posted by M. Giant 3:24 PM 0 comments

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