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It’s a lousy time to be Chez No Ordinary Rollercoaster these days. Between the four of us, three of us are sick. The newf, the only one with any immune system left in him, is quarantined in the closet where we keep our shoes. Not to keep him healthy but rather because he smells like feet.

Last week the dachshunds started sneezing all the time, often wet ones and often on my face while I’m sleeping. Now, if there’s something that dachshunds do that isn’t adorable, it’s spewing mucus on your face. Not cute. However, they make up for it by doing syncronized sneezing routines. And sneezing so hard that their snouts tap things and leave little wet smudges. Now THAT’s adorable sneezing.

But then, in a completely expected twist of fate – Karma hates me and I’ve come to terms with it – my season of being sick began. That’s right, my year looks mostly like this: Spring, Summer, Fall, Sick. And sick often takes up the bulk of fall as well.

So as the dogs’ symptoms progressed to include something called reverse sneezing (this weird, yakky, purgy, wheezy, wretchy thing), my head edged closer and closer to exploding altogether and my lungs made persistent attempts at jumping out of my chest and doing an irish jig on my cold dead body.

While the pooches just have a doggy respiratory infection that looks far worse than it is, this little blogger is stuck with a bronchial infection that is aggravating my – surprise! – latent asthma, something I didn’t know I had but explains a lot. I learned about this yesterday morning after a night of asthma attacks – WHO KNEW?? – and before another day of asthma attacks – WHEEEEE I LOVE MY LIFE!

Ironically, after being jealous of all the little sicky kids in elementary school with their glasses and their retainers and their epi pens, I am now the official owner of a puffer – a tool that is in fact much more difficult to use than you’d expect.

I have already shot myself in the eye (hold your dirty jokes, please), learned that spritzing your tongue helps neither your asthma nor your breath, and have had to be reminded numerous times that swallowing is different than inhaling (again hold the dirty jokes and the image of me being a laugh among pot smokers).

So here’s your image of blog headquarters this week. Me sitting on the floor in a blanket, coughing my face off and gasping overdramatically for breath and sympathy, tossing Calvin’s toy as he finds comfort in his familiar game of fetch and occasionally throwing Theo’s toy so he can play, only to see at his sad face as he tries to comprehend what kind of person would throw his things down the hall when he’s not feeling well.

Pathetic.

But don’t worry, we’ll all be right as rain in no time and we make sure the newf uses antibacterial scrub before he’s allowed out of the shoe closet for pee breaks.

P.S. I thought I lost Theo this morning in the yard until I found him sitting under a bush with a mouthful of soil. He’s definitely the Ralph Wiggum of our family.