Everything was better when we were kids - even getting sick
Aaron TavenaIssue date: 2/28/08 Section: Daily Buzz
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Recently, I pulled a back muscle - not from anything exciting, but from the embarrassing combination of getting out of bed and coughing at the same time. Compared to those childhood diseases that were passed around like Valentine's cards, nothing spells mortality like being rendered immobile by a cough. Even how you got sick was better as a child.
Now, I don't have a parent to bring me chicken soup or change the channel. Instead, I had a stray cat who visited regularly, probably to case my house for cat valuables, and as far as food, it was instant oatmeal and hastily-prepared quesadillas. Childhood wins this round.
As a kid, the more exciting venture was a faux illness - fake sniffles, a rigged thermometer that is furiously rubbed between your palms when mom stepped out of the room and a cough that was so rehearsed, you could've earned a daytime Emmy for your portrayal of what you thought a sick kid should sound like. In adulthood, you can pull off the same kind of routine, but without a doctor's note to back it up, you're S.O.L. Point to childhood.
Without that worry as a kid, though, we could perfect our illness technique. The cough was a tricky maneuver, since every parent knew that the phony cough was a crutch for kids faking the cold. Timing for the cough was everything, and if you forced it at the wrong time, your cover was blown. (Of course, we now know that vomit would've fooled even the most cynical parent, but what kid had that kind of foresight and dedication?)
The payoff for a successful fake sickness campaign was daytime cartoons and no school for a day. Today's cartoons suck, compared to the mesmerizing wonder of "Thundercats," "Voltron," and "3-2-1 Contact." Instead, I have the internet - cracked.com, aintitcoolnews.com and ign.com are my sources of entertainment. Though you have to remember that sitting in front of a computer screen when you're just injured your back isn't enjoyable. Childhood wins again.
By adulthood, though, we know what most kids don't: Even if you miss a day of school, you still have to make up the work. The knowledge of that fact doesn't make it any easier to take, and some might miss the days where we blissfully believed that because we missed school, the universe wiped that day from existence. Now, the best we can hope for is for a delay of the missed workload.
With that in mind, I have to get back to work. Adulthood loses.
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