Published: May 12, 2008 04:31 pm         

THEREFORE I AM: Am I Ferrell sick or Favre sick?

I was sick a couple of weeks ago, but how sick was I really? In times like those I wonder how well I handle illness. Am I a big pansy, or am I Superman? I hate being sick, so I suspect reality lies somewhere in-between — maybe leaning slightly toward the flowery side as opposed to The Man of Steel. I hate being sick.

I had a high fever and practically no energy to speak of. It took everything I had just to get up in the morning and get the kids off to school. I was pretty much useless, but I wonder how useful someone else would have been with my exact symptoms. If you felt precisely as bad as I felt, with a full-on case of the icks, would you have handled it better or worse than I? What’s your threshold for the icks? For that matter, what’s mine?

I was, without a doubt, quite legitimately sick, but while I was in bed moaning and groaning and tossing and turning, I know there are other people who would have shrugged it off, gritted their teeth and would have done whatever they needed to do, sick or not.

Superman? Well, obviously Krypton’s most famous emigrant never took a sick day. It takes more than a 103-degree fever to stop him, but, on the other hand, I am completely unaffected by Kryptonite, so perhaps Superman and I are a wash.

I’ll pick someone real. Take Brett Favre. I can say with absolute certainty that if Brett had a 103-degree fever on a game day, he would have been under center anyway. The guy’s a trooper. Come on, now: 253 consecutive starts as an NFL quarterback? He’s a man who didn’t let a case of the sniffles ruin his day. If Brett had felt as bad as I felt, you’d probably never even know it.

On the other end of the sick spectrum we have, say, Will Ferrell. It’s nothing personal against Will, but he strikes me as a guy who wouldn’t handle being sick very well. He’s someone who would milk it for all it’s worth. If I were laid up for two days, Will would be laid up for at least six.

Obviously I’m not talking about serious maladies like cancer or liver disease. Those kinds of things are hard on everyone. No one goes through chemotherapy in the morning and runs a marathon in the afternoon. Even someone like Brett Favre has his limits. What I’m talking about are minor illnesses that make you feel yucky-bad but aren’t dangerous.

You and I both know people who can tough it out better than others. Think about where you work. There is always one person who would show up with a 103-degree fever while bleeding from both eyes. It’s a source of pride for him to not allow mere sickness to get the better of him. He’s not about to let a stupid little virus affect his plans. While I admire his determination, I wish he would just stay home. This guy’s at work sick as a dog, hacking phlegmy coughs and sneezing all over the office. Blech! He invariably ends up spreading his cooties to the rest of us. If you’re that person, I have some friendly advice: Do us all a favor and just go home, get better and come back whenever you’re ready. No one’s impressed, and we wish you weren’t around us. You’re not indispensable. Somehow we’ll carry on without you for a few days.

Down at the other desk, however, you have the guy who misses three days of work with a hangnail. He uses up his year’s sick days by, oh, March, and spends nearly every day of the next nine months bellyaching about this and that. Once the hangnail clears up, he moves on to his next debilitating condition — maybe he stubbed his toe really hard (well, kinda hard) on the coffee table and spends the next 10 days walking around with a limp. When the temperature dips below 50, this guy has a scratchy throat and wants the whole world to know about it. I have some friendly advice for this guy, too: Drop your sniveling hypochondria, buck up, have a lozenge, and give us all a wee break.

When I was a kid, being sick had some perks. Mom would make chicken noodle soup, I got all the ginger ale I could drink, and I was the king of the remote control. Those were heady days. Being sick as an adult just isn’t the same, unless, of course, you’re Brett Favre. Or Superman.

David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@tds.net.