Chunky Monkey vs. the Contagion.

It was a cold afternoon outdoors, although that didn’t matter much since we lived in an apartment with radiators that spent much of the day banging, wheezing and spitting out enough heat to make sure that we had to keep the windows open anyway. That particular afternoon, as did so many others, found me laid up in bed with a fever and sore throat, waiting impatiently for my mother to get back from the store with the two prizes that would go a long way to making me feel less put upon by the cosmos: Goldfish crackers and bologna. They were, when I was a little kid, the official Sick Treats.

Since then, of course, Goldfish and bologna have been forever ruined for me as an adult because I can’t help but associate them with a high fever and the urge to pull out my own tonsils with a spoon. Still, those afternoons of Dickensian wretchedness have inspired me to make my own boys’ sick days as much fun as possible. So, when our younger boy turned up with a fever and a guttural cough that sounded for all the world as if Carol Channing had swallowed Phyllis Diller whole, I knew just what to do.

First, a trip to Shoprite produced a tub of Chunky Monkey ice cream and a bag of mini Butterfingers that went right in the freezer (Winning!). Then a pair of Motrin and a long hot shower got him feeling perky enough to sit up at the computer where we had a few frozen Butterfingers and played some Butterfinger-themed flash games. (Just for thematic coherence, if nothing else.) When that got old we moved on to Pogo.com where we competed against each other in a few spirited rounds of Word Whomp, Mini Golf Madness and Poppit. After that we were off to Nick.com for some Tartar Treachery with Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy.

By then the boy was starting to wilt a little, so we moved back to the couch where we turned on Netflix and finished off the afternoon by streaming Cave Dwellers courtesy of Joel, Crow and Tom Servo.

So no, not everyday can be an off-the-couch active day, but we do what we can. Jeez, I just hope that when the boy grows up he doesn’t associate Chunky Monkey, frozen Butterfingers and Mst3k with his own bouts of medieval-style contagion. Nah, it’ll probably be fine.

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Oh, and help yourself some Cave Dwellers. Mmmm.