Theories of Insanity

17 | "Sick"

17 | "Sick"

Thursday, November 16, 2017

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Insanity:

Pretending you didn't have a conversation with someone less than twelve hours earlier, even though you totally did. And they remember it. And you're kind of a moron.

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            I'm going to explain something about the way my body works.

            Since I was little, if I went a few days without getting adequate sleep (upwards of six hours) I would get sick. (1) Not feverish, but sick to the point that my head hurt like crazy and my entire body felt like it was going to explode if I moved from my bed. I was used to this about myself, and I knew exactly how to make myself better: I took one day, spent it in bed sleeping and relaxing, and by the next morning I was completely normal.

            Then there were people like my sister, who pulled three all-nighters in a row and still felt like they could tackle the world.

            But that's beside the point.

            I hadn't gotten to that point yet in the semester until mid-November, right when we were getting close to Thanksgiving break. I woke up on a Thursday morning, ready for my 8 AM Nutrition class, when I felt it kick in.

            I rolled my eyes and simultaneously rolled over in bed, getting comfortable. I wasn't worried; I just needed to take some time for myself, after running like a machine for the entire semester so far. Plus, we weren't doing anything especially important in Nutrition, and I could easily ask Madison to take my iClicker into American Government and Politics so I could get points for the quiz.

            For those of you who don't know what an iClicker is, they're used by almost every professor at Legered. They're little rectangular boxes with five buttons on them: A, B, C, D, and E. They're used for taking in-class quizzes, and a lot of the time are just for a participation grade to prove you actually showed up to the class. At the beginning of the semester, Madison and I had agreed that if we were ever sick, the other person would take our iClicker into class to make sure we didn't lose out on points—the class was difficult and we didn't want to risk dropping any points if we didn't have to.

            So around 8:30, as Madison was getting ready to leave for class, I flipped back over in bed to ask her to take mine in.

            "Hey, Madison?"

            "Yeah, what's up?"

            "I'm not feeling too great. Is there any way you could take my iClicker in to class for me?"

            She looked me up and down, eyebrows raised and arms crossed, not even glancing at where I was pointing to try and show her where the iClicker was on my desk.

            "Are you sick?" She asked, putting extra emphasis on the last word to let me know she didn't believe me.

            I raised my eyebrows.

            "...yeah, I am."

            "You don't sound sick."

            "I'm just exhausted. My body gets like this when I don't get enough sleep, and I just have to sleep it off. I'll be fine by tomorrow morning."