Plop. Plop. Fizz. Fizz.

Yet, there is no relief in sight. Damn you, Alka Seltzer.

Okay, maybe I shouldn't damn you if I didn't actually take your product, but I do damn your brethren of cold/flu medicines that I did take - and did not work.

I caught a cold from Amos. He was all cute and drippy with his cold, while I am a face-swollen, drippy, achy, disgusting mess. Oh, to have the immune system of a toddler. Currently, I have a tissue stuffed up my nose as I type. One nostril would leak, so I stuffed a tissue up there. Then, the other nostril started to leak, so I stuffed the other end of the tissue up the remaining nostril. I look like one of those Spanish bulls with a huge nose ring, except mine is the backwoods Kentucky version of having a nose ring.

"Look, ma! I didn't even need to pierce it! I just stuffed a tissue up in der! Them kids at school are gunna thank I'm so kewl!"

I watched a show recently about backwoods Appalachia, so perhaps this is where I got the idea.

My computer is dying a slow, agonizing death in a very melodramatic way. I think my laptop wants to be a soap star. It darts its eyes furtively and takes dramatic pauses, or it runs away with the swarthy stranger who turns out to be its brother.

For these reasons, I have ordered a new laptop. I yearn for the day when I receive the notice in the mail that the maker of said laptop has decided to finally ship it. How could a laptop take so long to make and ship? What about all of those fancy machines that go whiz and burr and brop and zing as they drop pieces of technology onto plastic and then call it a computer? How long could that possibly take? I know they aren't knitting the laptop. If they were knitting it, I'd understand. Because, uh, I'm a slow knitter. It would take me years just to fashion up a wireless mouse.

So, unless my new laptop is crocheted or cross-stitched with pretty roses, I will remain anxious and angry with the maker of said laptop. In the meantime, please send more tissues to myself and my old laptop. She's making eyes at the coffee machine, and I hear he's a heartbreaker. (Plus, he died in a mysterious brick-making factory explosion but somehow came back with amnesia. I think we know how that one goes.)