Not Contagious

So a month or so ago, I got in the car to go to Costco because suddenly my sister and I were out of anything paper, and I had been holding it for two days. Ok, that's not true, because I did go out at midnight (read: 9pm) one night to get some tp and Becky pitched such a fit that it was only 1 ply that I was pretty sure her tiara started to slip off. The only solution: go buy a package of 14 million rolls.

Anyway, so we get in the car and I'm feeling a little feverish, which I chalk up to the fact I was just wearing full sweats even though it's like 80 out (because I like to dress as if I still live in Chicago), and I look in the mirror and notice I look wrong. I look wrong because I am covered in red spots. Like, not just a little bit covered, it's all over my neck, chest, face, torso - but not my arms or legs - which causes me to turn to my sister and yell, "It's not on my limbs, it's just on my body!" (because logic and me part ways when I'm fairly certain I've just inherited a latent strain of SARS) (because even in my freak-outs I'm not cool enough to get a disease when it's popular)

I pulled down the visor-mirror thing to check the rash from different angles while Becky just keeps repeating something about how I need electrolytes. That's her solution to my SARS - just have some Gatorade, you'll be fine. This was not that shocking to me though - when we were kids if Becky had a stomachache my Mom used to hand her the bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos, tell her they were her medicine, and Becky would have to lie on the floor while she ate them. For headaches I was given my choice of See's dark chocolates; for colds we got a combo of butter-peanut butter toast and jars of baby food; and for the flu - Taco Bell. The flu was the best.

It seemed to always work somehow, we survived childhood without any major illness anyway, but right then in the car, with my rapidly spreading rash, I did not think a lime-flavored beverage was going to cure me. I took several pictures with my cell phone to send to Gige's husband so he could diagnose me via a grainy picture the size of a Triscuit, and then went back to examining myself in the visor-mirror when I noticed the SARS was not just on my body, it was also on my eyeballs.

Cut to immediate panic and thoughts of having to have my eyeballs removed and robot ones put in - if I even made it that long, because pretty much, I only had minutes to live.

I couldn't even cry because I was afraid the tears would somehow cause a reaction with the rash on my eyeballs and things would start to explode. I made Becky double check for me, which she refused to do until we were at a stop light because she "didn't want both of us to die today" or something safe like that, but once we stopped she looked at the whites of my eyes and then gave me a look I've only seen on Grey's Anatomy right before they tell the patient he's got a baby bird stuck in his gallbladder.

"You do have a rash on your eyeballs. Holy shit."

"Oh my god I do?!"

"You're the one who made me check!"

"I was hoping I was just feverish and hallucinating!"

And so on. Becky was still convinced all I needed were some electrolytes, and after several minutes of wondering who I could have caught this from, Gige texted me back and said:

"Did you run today?"

"Yes."

"How far?"

"Eighteen miles."

"Then did you shower and put sweats on?"

"Can you see me?"

"You have a heat rash. Stop freaking out and tell Becky to turn the air-conditioning on."

I was fairly certain it was not a heat rash, that would be silly, but I rolled down the windows, Becky cranked the air while muttering about how of course it was the heat and hadn't she been saying that all along? And then magically, ten minutes later of fresh air, the rash on my body and on my eyeballs was totally gone. Heat rash, not SARS. Weirdest side effect of running ever.

Then yesterday night (a month later and forty degrees colder) I got home and sat down next to Becky who looked at me and said, "What the heck? You have that rash thing again!"

"Is it on my eye?"

"Not yet!"

"Quick open a window so it doesn't spread!"

"How much did you run today?"

"Just five!"

"Your exercise is causing problems!"

"The fact that I just came in from 40 degree weather to 80 is causing problems!"

And so on until the season finale of Glee came on and we were both distracted from my temperature change problem by dancing singing adults pretending to be teenagers - and by the time it was over and I'd stopped crying (I love that show a little too much, and I'm a little too emotional these days if I'm crying just because the Cheerleaders are on the Glee Club kid's side) my redness was gone, and no eyeballs had been harmed.

So now if it ever happens again I'll know I can either get somewhere cold real fast, or turn on a musical. Both can fix me - and that's exactly what I'm going to explain to my kids when I'm holding them out the window of a speeding car to help cure their diaper rash.