So, like, even though I ended up weeping uncontrollably at that scene with Elliot and E.T. lying side-by-side saying their good-byes as the science dudes are about to make off with him?
Nah. You’d have done that anyway.
Or when I said I wasn’t hungry and actually meant it?
Probably not, no
Even though I didn’t sneak any sweets up to bed to eat on the sly?
Nope
Or the fact I couldn’t move out of bed for an entire two days and woke up at 4am deliriously convinced I was in the house of our childhood neighbour and was just about to get done for suspiciously hanging around their drinks cabinet?
What?
Nothing. But I was exceptionally friendly to your sister when she called round.
So?
And I almost outed us as a Celtic household after spotting some middle-class sneering on Twitter, and was very tempted to defend you despite fearing how judged we would be?
Sure they’re always sneering
But I had to leave that mother stranded and rush in to hide the Celtic Santa before I could let her in last week
[Silence]
Right, well, what about the fact I didn’t once roar at the television during the following:
a) RTE’s displays of patronising public service duty. This time portraying the latest immigrant in Fair City as over-familiar, and duty-bound to be obsequiously lovely to every local he meets irrespective of where the locals come on the spectrum of beige
b) Kathryn Thomas contaminating the Trolls theme tune with her smug evangelical calorie killing kill-joy routine crying out for a toe up the hole from patent ox-blood Dr Martens
And I didn’t try to pretend I wasn’t watching Fair City, or hand you the remote so you could pretend that I pretend I don’t watch it by keeping it on while flicking through teletext.
You sound better now.
I was serious about the sweets y’know
[laughs] I know
So, if it wasn’t the fucking flu then what the hell was it?
I told you. It was just a bad cold.
“It’s just a bad cold, E.T. You’ll be grand. Let me ask these guys for a strepsil”
department of speculation 
Anything that can’t be cured by sudacrem is offered neurofen and sudafed. If they insist they are still very sick I ask, “Really? Are you on chemotherapy?” That usually cures them.
Although not shouting at Katherine Thomas would be on my list of ‘may actually be sick’ symptoms.
I think I was suffering anger overload hence the stunned silence. That’s a quality line there with the cancer treatment, tric. I still blush when I think of the time I turned up to a wedding with a headscarf. Dodgy hair-day. Thinking I had adequately salvaged a disaster, I was nonplussed when a mate slid into the pew to inquire about my new “chemo look”. At least I didn’t go looking like Kathryn Why-Can’t-You-Just-Be-Me Thomas.
This should form a standardised test at all GPs, Depterness. Have you patented it? They could at least put on the blood pressure cuff & show patients pictures of Kathryn Thomas.
http://barrymccallphotographer.com/index.php/kathryn-thomas-for-irish-tatler/
Quick, Morag! The smelling salts. I knew this would go wrong..
Sweet Jesus. Well, at least that’s the diet sorted. I won’t be keeping food down for a while
I don’t know what the RTE is or who Kathryn Thomas is, but if I say I’m not hungry at meal time, and really mean it, then an ambulance should be called without delay.
You had me at ET. If I saw you so much as dabbing your eye I would have been passing you the multipack of Day/Night nurse with some gin to wash it down. Gawd help that man if he so much as sniffs – you must promise to let him writhe in his own midden of snot-moistened hankies.
And that’s just when his lot lose the football. Thank you for not doubting me, birdie. For being there at my grave side. Astonishingly, the entire episode has left me unable to drink coffee. Worse things have occurred after a lobotomy.
I think you’re still ill. *passes a mug of gin with a drop of Day Nurse*
Nooooo! What is life without coffee *stares at empty cup* Last time I had such a bad flu it masked the first symptoms of pregnancy. Just saying 😉
A year off work – condemned to bed with chronic nausea, insomnia, and rapid aging. That I would be so lucky.