Hilarious Delirium

Aaron has strep throat and an ear infection again and, while that in itself is not funny, he is hilarious when he's delirious with fever. He gets all loopy and makes rambling, out of the blue comments about random topics in this tiny little weak, pitiful voice. Honestly, he sounds stoned. I kept expecting him to tell me he had the munchies and to pass the Doritos.

Since Aaron waited until 5:11 p.m. to tell me he wasn't feeling well (exactly eleven minutes after the doctor's office closed), we went to Walgreen's Take Care Clinic. There were three people ahead of us waiting for school shots, but they bumped him to the top of the list because of his fever (and because those people left to go have dinner while they waited). Even so, we waited for about an hour (while he had a 102 temperature) before I finally broke down and bought him some Tylenol at the pharmacy.

When they finally got us back into a room, Aaron was asking the triage nurse about every piece of equipment she used and how it operates. Every time she came near him with something in her hand he said, "Is this going to hurt? What does it do? How does it work? Where did you learn how to use it? Oh wait, is this going to hurt?"

He said, "Last time I had strep they gave me a shot. Am I going to get a shot? I didn't cry last time, but I really don't like shots. It felt like a shark jumped up out of the ocean and bit me on the butt."

She laughed and whispered, "Well, guess what? We don't give shots here for sickness, only for immunizations."

He replied, "Oh good because I don't like sharks on my butt. What's an imm-un-i- whateveryousaid?" Then she approached him with a pulse-ox finger thingy and he said, "Hey, what's that? How does it work? Is it going to hurt?"

Then the nurse started to leave. She turned at the door and said, "The NP will be here in a couple of minutes." Aaron said, "Well, how long do you really mean, because "a couple" means two, and I'm pretty sure it'll be more than two minutes. We've been here for an hour already."

Thank goodness that nurse was amused by him, rather than offended. And, just so you know, he was right. It was NOT two minutes--more like another half an hour. During this time, he made random observations about all sorts of things in the room and asked a million questions about the difference between an RN, an NP, and a doctor in that wimpy, pitiful, feverish voice.

Then, about twenty minutes into our wait, the Tylenol kicked in and his rambling kicked up a notch as if I'd given him crack cocaine. "You know how I knew that we'd have to wait a long time? Because I knew that a couple means two because you and Daddy are a couple and there are two of you, and I knew that we'd have to wait more than two minutes because nobody ever waits for just two minutes at a doctor's office. I mean, they usually make you wait forever and you can't play with the toys because you're sick and you shouldn't spread your germs around when you're sick and anyway, this place doesn't even have toys but even if they did I couldn't play with them anyway. Hey--can dogs get sick because I really hope I don't give Lily strep throat because she's the best dog in the world and, oh my gosh--was I contagious at church yesterday? Because I really hope I didn't get my friends and my teachers sick because I love my teachers so much and they're the best teachers in the world and....."

And on and on, world without end, amen, amen.

I worked really hard to not laugh at him. Poor little guy.