"We've Beem Yanked... Good and Hard!"

Rob at Seduced by the New... posted this "New Teen Titans"-post "Judas Contract" panel a little while ago, and I have to pass it on for two reasons:

1) To continue my tradition of showing non-comic book fans that not all the crazy in the universe comes from "The Wendy Williams Show," and...

2) Because, in an uber-random and bizarre way, it describes the cough and cold that I brought back to Chicago from my Christmas visit in Tennessee.

Not that a cold or a cough is anywhere near as enjoyable as being "yanked... good and hard!" or "shooting," whether you shoot first, last or mid-ménage, but...

Sometime in the mid-afternoon on the day before my flight back to Chicago, I started getting a sore throat and felt achy all over.

And as the symptoms started hitting me, I kept thinking about Christmas night, sitting on the couch with my step-cousin's beautiful, four year old daughter. I remembered the two of us laughing hysterically when she would use my face - - not her hand, but my face- - every time she let out a hacking cough.

Yes, she would feel the cough coming on, put her face in mine and then cough. And then laugh.

No, that's not true. Then, we would BOTH laugh. Hard.

The me that's sick now honestly has no idea why that was funny. But it was. I hadn't had a drop of vodka in days and still, it was "ROFLMAO" funny. I blame it on all that damn holiday joy and goodwill.

You see, my trip back home this past Christmas really picked up my spirits, so maybe - - just maybe - - my heart did that Grinch thing and "grew three sizes" that night.

And maybe - - just maybe - - when your heart grows three sizes bigger, your brain equals the playing field by dumping your I.Q. down below the Sarah Palin level.

I mean, on Christmas night, my heart might have grown so large that I believed Africa was a country!

Regardless of why I laughed, I laughed. I laughed while a little girl coughed in my face, over and over, passing on her cold to me. She's not to blame, though; I'm the one who should have known better.

And so, right now, I sound like Brenda Vaccaro hawking Playtex Tampons...

..after gargling with Epsom salts.

...mixed with some kerosene...

...and a few rusty razor blades.

And all of that - - the illness, the sound of my voice, the fact that I was so stupid to enjoy a child coughing over and over in my face - - makes me feel, in the words of Nightwing, like I've been "yanked... good and hard!"

Insert masturbation jokes here.

"Insert." That's funny...