Deathfest

What do you say when one of the best weekends of the year, a hootenanny scheduled for months, threatens to get ruined by a looming respiratory infection? Some would say, "You win, physical well-being; let's stay home, put on some sweats, and watch 'Murder, She Wrote' until we start to find Angela Lansbury strangely attractive." Yours truly does not subscribe to that newsletter. Rather, I say, "Haters to the back," then I cram both into the same weekend and barely make it out alive.

I will share a few more details. This past weekend marked Benchfest, an event hosted in DFJ's backyard that featured a veritable who's-who of Southwest Arlington, Texas's finest. No description of this event could do it justice, so I'll just throw down a few of the key elements: pinatas, crawfish, man-eating dogs, lottery tickets, and wooden swords. It falls on the same weekend every year, and after you've attended once, I defy you not to look forward to the next one. Since I'm giddier than most, I had literally been counting the days.

At the beginning of March, a nasty, junky, whooping cough started circulating around the office place, laying out my coworkers left and right. I know how to read a calendar and I also know my immune system; my plan was to get the bug early so I could recover in time for Benchfest. However, no matter how many times I asked others to sneeze on me, I didn't feel the slightest tickle in my throat. That is, I felt nothing until three days before Benchfest.

Through some rough calculations, I figured that I'd be at my sickest on the day of Benchfest. That was fine; if I'm going to die, let's do it at a notable social gathering. During the actual Benchfest event, I realized that I actually felt pretty good. Typically it's hard to have fun when I'm sick, but I had absolutely no issues on Saturday; I quickly concluded that the whole health bug was a hoax. The night was awesome and the pictures will follow.

Then, Sunday afternoon, I went to drive back home to Austin. Roughly 30 miles in, I realized that not only did I completely miscalculate the due date of the Super Bug, but that the only way I could possibly get back to Austin that night, in the driving rain and snarled traffic of I 35, was if somehow Santa hooked his sleigh up to my vehicle and led me back to my house. I was wiped out, I had a fever, and whenever I tried to breathe, I sounded like the Cancer Man from the X Files.

I pulled into a Motel 6 in Hillsboro, procured a 7'x7' cube for the night, and proceeded to flood the bathroom when I couldn't get the faucet to stop running. Luckily for me, I was asleep through the whole thing and I also don't live at the Motel 6. I woke up early yesterday morning, thinking I'd have no problem making to work. Thirty minutes into the trip home, I realized that, no matter how many honey buns I consumed, I felt even worse. I drove home, I slept, and I'm a little better today.

I'll upload some pics tonight or tomorrow. As for now, I made it out alive and I'm pretty jazzed about that.

Posted by Cody at March 13, 2007 6:51 PM