Wednesday, April 30, 2008
SLAP HAPPY
G: "Tr****'s daughter, H****, came into the office with her today. She's off school and had been to the doctor's with Slapped Cheek."
Me: "What? Her mum had slapped her cheek? I thought you ended up going to jail for doing that sort of thing to your kids these days."
G: "No, it's an illness, Slapped Cheek. You get red cheeks and end up having a fever and stuff."
Me: "I've never heard of it before. Can adults get it?"
G: "Well, she was past the infectious stage, but her mum could be a carrier I suppose."
Hence, er, probably, I've had rather a florid complexion for the past few days. Not down to excessive consumption of wine, oh no. It's because I've got Slapped Cheek, er, probably.
These days, people like to think of themselves as a malfunctioning, neurotic bundle of phobias and ailments. Something that in days of old you would have put up with as a minor illness you now have to see as a symptom of your whole body failing, so you really ought to fork out for some bogus homeopathic treatment and get to the root of the real *cause* of it, y'know. If you undergo some form of stress (job loss, bereavement) then it's no longer okay to work through the natural responses of depression or worry. Oh no, you've got to put yourself through a couple of years of "pity poor me" counselling so you can let yourself know that you RILLY RILLY have suffered.
So ... anyway, it's not surprising that there are imaginary childhood diseases such as (ahem) Slapped Cheek, which no one had heard of ten years ago. Why should children be left out of the endless cycle of suffering we have to undergo in the western world, eh?
I'm too young to have memories of, like, proper, hardcore childhood diseases such as diphtheria or whooping cough. Them wuz the days, eh?
However, I got through the following:
Measles. Can't remember much about it.
Chicken pox. Don't think I was too ill. My parents were livid because it coincided with the annual holiday in Wales. My dad had to work at a bakery to make up the cost so we could take the holiday later. Pigeons used to shit in the bread mix from the eaves of the bakery roof. This is why it's probably best to bake your own bread. Hem hem, I digress.
Mumps. A classic! Can still remember the exquisite pain in my neck glands to this day, and having to look as moon faced as Mariah Carey for a fortnight.
Vomiting all the time. Best way to get back at parents for having you in the first place. No one asks to be born, do they?
Bronchitis. I had a disgusting cough every autumn through until spring the following year until I was about eleven because of getting bronchitis when I was five. Plenty of time off school though - great.
Hay fever. Glued up eyes, streaming nose, head feeling as if it had exploded, stupid red face. Started up every spring after the bronchial cough disappeared, right through until the autumn when the cough came back. No wonder I eventually liked The Smiths (I grew out of the bronchial cough, the hay fever and The Smiths, for which I'm forever grateful).
Slapped Cheek though? Don't make me laugh. Stick a bit of calamine lotion on your kids and shut 'em up in the coal cellar for a few hours. It never did me any harm.
Labels: childhood diseases, Mariah Carey's moon face, mumps, self pity, slapped cheek
