Read Curing the Uncommon Man-Cold for Free Online

counter again. Then three more big swallows of water. Finally the aspirin had seemingly reached his gullet. Jason clawed at the outside of his throat for a moment, as though that might help the dissolving descent.
    Amanda watched all this with considerable curiosity. She’d never imagined a person could incorporate so much theater into taking two uncoated aspirin.
    Jason took a final sip and put down the water. Then he turned, stretched his throat, and extended his streaky tongue. He made the kahh noise again. “The coated kind’s a lot better.”
    Later, Amanda served up another lukewarm mug of consommé and three generic rye crisps. She decided to save the new rice cake crackers for the next day.
    With television out and no catalogs to leaf through, Jason decided to return to bed. He slowly trudged down the hall… limping.
    Amanda was very curious about Christine’s blog but hadn’t had a chance to check it yet. Her instructions were to keep her laptop hidden while Jason was awake.
    It was a little after 9:00 p.m. when the window-rattling snores assured Amanda that Jason was asleep. At that hour, she didn’t feel like piddling in the parking lot to retrieve her laptop from the trunk of her car, so Amanda called Christine at home. “I’ve been thinking. Doing all this stuff sounds awfully complicated and expensive. I don’t have any money to speak of.”
    “Not a problem, really. I’ve got some mad money. Plus, like I said, I’ve started a blog and expect lots of donations.”
    “Donations? To us? Because Jason has a virus?”
    “Sure. In return, the donors can access the results of our efforts.” Christine acted like everybody knew this. “I think you’ll find the sisterhood is very generous.”
    “You make it sound like a coven.”
    “Not those kind of sisters. I mean the poor schlubs like you and me who’ve had to endure a husband or boyfriend with a man-cold. Those sisters.”
    “Well, you’d mentioned a blog at least twice but still haven’t explained.” Amanda sat on the couch and put her feet up. She switched the phone to her other ear. “What’s on this new blog?”
    “I’m posting daily updates, so our grateful readers can see what works best.”
    “You don’t mean with our names and everything. Uh, I don’t thi…”
    “Relax. I’m just using pseudonyms.” Christine began whispering. “You’re Missy and he’s Marty .” She returned to normal phone volume. “Besides, there’s no pix and nobody even knows where we are.”
    “Slow down. Nobody knows… Who nobody?”
    “The World Wide Web, doofus. Our blog is going continental. Might even be global, except I’m not doing any translations.”
    “You mean you’re writing stuff about Jason’s sickness and what we’re doing to blast him out of my apartment… and posting it on the Internet?”
    “Amanda, what the heck did you think I meant by blog ?”
    “I wasn’t thinking. My brain’s fried from grant applications out the wah-zoo and my boss breathing down my neck for assessments, even though he won’t leave me alone enough so I can prepare them.” Amanda made a noise that was a combination sigh and groan. “I guess I figured you meant blog in a figurative sense — e-mailing some buddies or something. Maybe have them forward it, like a chain. I don’t know.”
    “No, girl, this is major. Like I said, we’re giving back to the community. In this case, the Internet community. Look, every woman reading our blog can identify with your situation — they’ve all had to baby a sick man at one time or another. Some are worse than others, of course. Judging from your January experience, it seems Jason has his own category of extreme disability. By sharing his pitiful story, we cover all the bases of everybody else in the country, or world. Whichever.”
    “You’re missing my main concern.” Amanda sputtered slightly. “These are our personal lives you’re broadcasting. And what we’re doing — while totally