Today I’m taking my first sick day off of work. Well, sick half-day since I can’t afford to take an actual and complete full day off after I just had labor day off (with no pay.)

I’d like to say I pulled a Ferris Bueller and talked a couple friends into spending the morning visiting museums and eating at snooty (snooty?) snotty restaurants; the truth be told I either bruised or cracked a rib last week. It’d be much more interesting if I could be all “I was having crazed monkeysex with some hot guy I met online”, but I actually injured myself giving Plato a much needed bath. I was bent over the tub trying to hold him with one hand while pouring water over him with the other. He was being VERY tolerant under the circumstances but at one point I guess he was just wet as hell and couldn’t stand it anymore because he started to squirm out of my hands, planning to leap from the porcelain Guantanamo Tub that he had found himself in, I’m sure. He squirmed, I clutched, he lept, my knee slipped, he was pulled back into the tub and the edge of the tub got jammed between two of my ribs.

I remember feeling a weird sensation in my ribcage. It was like the edge of the tub was alive and vibrating, trying to burrow deep into my body like a giant ceramic parasite. (It was very Kafka.) It didn’t really hurt, though. Until the next morning.

Of course, I figured since I had gone through this before I could take it like a man —- I knew what to expect, right? Stupid stupid stupid.

It’s been painful but tolerable throughout the week, but I must have sat wrong on the metro last night because when I stood up to start walking home I almost doubled over in pain right there on the train. Then I took a nap last night and must have rolled over on my stomach because when I woke up, not only was I on my stomach, but the pain was even worse. I remember thinking to myself “Oh weird, how did I end up on my stomach. Damn, the pain is even worse.”

So this morning, for the past couple of hours, I’ve been sitting on the sofa with an ice pack on my bosom, praying to the rib goddess to make the pain a little better so I can go and make some mo-nay to support my kitties. So far my upper torso is much colder than it was before, but I’m not sure if it’s any better. I’ll have to wait for my ribcage to thaw out to see if this did any good.

At least Plato is clean now, right?