Sicky Sick Sickerson

I used to like being sick when I was little. It meant staying home from school, spending all day in my pajamas sipping Coke or slurping Campbell's chicken noodle soup, and watching old Bette Davis movies with my mom.

I don't much like being sick as a grownup. It means going to work anyway.

Tiffany, on the other hand, loves being sick. Well, she likes being middling sick--somewhere between scratchy throat and bedridden. She likes coughing in my direction until I look up from whatever I'm doing--

"Are you hearing this? I think I'm getting sick..."

--losing her voice--

"It's literally gone!" she croaks--

and generally playing up whatever ailment she has developed--

"Can you take my temperature?"

Luckily for Tiffany, she's adorable when she's sick.

"I'm sicky sick sickerson," she said to me a couple of weeks ago when I got home as she sucked on a cherry-flavored cough drop. "Sick sick sick!"

The next morning I left her tucked in bed while I went to the gym. But when I got home again she was up and moving.

"Get back in bed!" I said, "go!"

"But I want to spend time with you!" she whispered, her voice like sandpaper.

"You just want me to notice you have no voice," I said, fighting a smile as I pushed and prodded her.

"It's literally gone!" she croaked.

I wish I could tell you I rented a bunch of suspenseful black-and-whites and served Tiffany a piping hot bowl of chicken noodle. But Tiffany doesn't like scary movies and she had to make do with cabbage.