Scraping At the Grime Posted: May 19, 2010 Recently I came down with one crazy bad virus. When I discovered my temperature was a steamy 99.5, I freaked out. It could be the swine flu, I thought to myself. I'm going to get worse in the middle of the night. I'll be throwing up and my fever will reach dangerous heights and the doctor will be closed. I'll have to go to the emergency room. But how will I get there? I'll be too sick to drive myself. I'll have to call a friend to take me to the hospital. I hope that we make it in time. People are dying of the flu. I could die of the flu! As ridiculous as this line of thinking was, what came next was even crazier. While contemplating the inevitably fatal influenza (which I did not yet have), I realized that if someone came to take me to the hospital, that person would see my apartment. I'd been meaning to clean it for days, but sometimes I'm lazy. It hadn't seemed important until I realized someone was actually going to see my mess. So, the housecleaning, which this morning seemed unimportant, jumped to the top of my priority list. I felt terrible. I had a low-grade fever, a headache, and I was exhausted, and I decided that the most important thing to do was clean. So, I cleaned house just as fast as I could before the fever got worse and I was forced to rush to the hospital for the flu I didn't yet have. Sometimes, I'm ridiculous.