It's Snot for Me

I writhed and rotisserated and lurched in and out of bed most of last night with a moderately bad episode of my perpetual sinus problems. (On a scale of 1-10, it was about a 7.) Funny how just a little excess of mucous and a little dearth of good drainage can so affect my quality of life. After two sinus surgeries in recent years, I'm still hassling with constant stuffiness and recurring infections. I do try to deal with preventive measures: We have wood floors instead of carpeting, and I take a daily allergy pill and nose spray. Yeah, I have indoors pets, but they aren't allowed in the bedroom generally. I JUST finished a round of antibiotics a week or two ago for an infection. And now? It's all back again.

I wish I could just remove my sinuses (but how do you "remove" a hole?) and pave the spaces over with concrete. I'd willingly use moistening nose spray hourly for the rest of my life if it meant I didn't have to deal with this congestion ALL THE FUCKING TIME.

I lie down on my left side and feel the pressure build until GLUCK-GLUCK-GLUCk, the ketchup bottle that is my head gives an audible POP and all the snot drips from the right side to the left. Let that build for a while, and then flip over to the right side. ... GLUCK-GLUCK-GLUCK. Roll the clock forward for five hours of this. I lie there with my mind occupied with nothing more than the almost sexual pleasure of the pops and the glucks as they relieve the pressure.

And then, when I finally have puttered around the downstairs and taken enough sinus medicine that I'm both "opened up" and sufficiently groggy to sleep despite my pounding head and how the medicine makes my high blood pressure zoom up, there's that thing that happens when I spoon up next to my hubby.

You ladies know what I mean. Feel bad enough, long enough, and you don't have sex with your husband often enough for his liking. Then every time you get near him, even the most casual touch turns into a "Well, hell-OH there, baby" moment. Even when you feel like shit and he knows it.

*sigh*

He's not even awake yet, and I already feel like an ambulatory steak prancing around in front of a chained-up, starving dog.

Here's how it plays out: I lie down and sigh. The cool sheets and warm man feel so good. My hurting head has receded from a 7 on the pain scale to about a 4, and even though I know I'll pay for it tomorrow with rebound congestion, the temporary relief is enough for the moment. The front of my thighs make contact with his ass. I drape one arm across his belly and relax. Finally start to drift off. And then ... Oh. Shit.

His asshole starts to quiver. Pucker, pucker, pucker. I tense up and don't move a muscle, especially the hand across his belly.

Pucker, pucker, pucker. It would be funny if it didn't also irritate the piss out of me. It's like a little kissing fish making contact with the glass of the aquarium. Clench, clench, clench. (Stop that!)

And I know, from experience, that with each butt pucker, his pecker is inflating on the other side of his body. Soon, he'll wake up, tent the sheets, and reach for me as if he's just had A Very Good Idea.

FUCK! NO!

When I say, "No, baby, I've been trying to get to sleep for five hours and it's 4:30 and I have to get up in two hours and go to work and my head hurts," he'll flip over in a flurry of indignant, hurt rejection before I can finish the "No, baby."

Why can't he just ignore the peckertude when I've got the sickitude? WHY must he always insist on trying for the fuckitude when he knows I've got the "Oh, shit-itude" response?

And why don't I just fuck him and then make him get up and get me more aspirin, you may ask. My answer: Because my mission in life is not to be an on-demand dick sheath regardless of my mood or health. How I feel MATTERS.

At least to me.

And before I get a comment that suggests all I need is a real good old-fashioned deepdicking, I have a question for the dick philosophers: Why is it OK for him to be selfish and want to dip his wick and not OK for me to be selfish and say no when I don't feel well? Because being horny is more natural and normal than being sick? Because wanting is more important than not wanting? Because "it would just take a minute" and I will feel bad whether I open my legs or no, so why not do it "for him, because "what's the big deal"?

Is this feminism or childishness?

I've got to go see an allergist and try to explain that either the snot or my husband's pecker have got to go, and I'm way more fond of one of them than the other.

That, or start sleeping downstainrs.