The Sickness is an epidemic on college campuses. By "The Sickness," I am referring to the habitual cough, the stuffed-up nose and the overall tiredness that makes waking up before 1 p.m. difficult, if not downright impossible.
The cough is the most obvious signature of The Sickness. Anyone who has ever attended a large lecture class knows what I mean -- where if one person coughs, hundreds of other coughs follow, creating a noise comparable to a herd of buffalo singing Mozart's Fifth. The worst part is this always seems to happen during tests. When you need your utmost concentration to answer question 14, the one asking who the Prime Minister of Neptune is -- which is tricky, because it is a Calculus II class, and you are pretty sure Neptune doesn't have a parliamentary government.
And then it happens. It starts as a tickle in the throat, an itch comparable to a thousand red ants stopping for a late breakfast in your lungs. You try to hold the sensation in, but, alas, it's no use. Your cough joins the masses. This surprises you, as you didn't think you had a cold. You had always thought of yourself as a strong, healthy specimen, but upon thinking about it, you realize you've had this minor cough, stuffy nose and tiredness since arriving at college. You have had The Sickness for this long, and you hadn't realized it. Suddenly everything makes sense, and you feel justified for having stayed in the night before to relax, crochet and watch a Lifetime Original movie about the troubled, drug-ridden life of Ronald McDonald.
What makes me laugh is how so many students say, "I have no idea how I got it. I never got sick in high school."
I just want to say, "That may be true, but I bet in high school you never stayed up all night turning peek-a-boo into a drinking game, either."
College students really do not live very healthy lifestyles. The only vegetables we eat are the toppings of supreme pizzas, and I'm pretty sure those are just painted cardboard strips. Some of us exercise, but most stick to a strict diet of liquor and sliced tomatoes to stay thin, at the cost of most bodily organs. I have a friend who added up the calories in her rum shots to ensure she was consuming her daily amount of calories. Kids, do not try this at home. That is only for professional idiots.
Nobody actually knows what causes The Sickness. I have heard it's bacterial, viral, air-borne, immaculate-borne, non-contagious, spreadable, better-than-butter and (silly rabbit) just for kids. I joke here, but it's to make a point: Students do not know anything about The Sickness, even though we may attempt to explain it.
Even doctors don't know what The Sickness is. If you ever go into your school's student health building and get the trifecta exam (the one where they draw blood to check for the flu, mono and mental retardation), the results are always negative. And the doctors always say to you, "We're not sure what it is, but how about we check for blindness, just to be safe?"
This is when you sprint outside and realize that The Sickness has no true biological reason. Which is why in a breakout theory that I call the Shuptrine Sickness Breakout Theory, I posit that The Sickness is merely the result of peer pressure. At one point or another, we saw the cool kid cough, and the fashion immediately caught on, not unlike how potty training and autonomic breathing became the new fad after the same kid did them first. So when another college student coughs, we cough too, to be cool and fit in -- if only to compensate for high school, where the one person who didn't think we were a giant loser was the president of the Pocket Protector Club, and even then he would only speak to us at night in empty, windowless rooms, and always with a Nixon mask on.
I don't really have any proof of my theory, but I dare you to offer a better reason why if one person starts coughing, 50 more follow. Peer pressure has been such a vital force in our lives that it makes sense The Sickness would be intrinsically linked to it. If you disagree, come to my house this weekend and we can discuss it more. I'll be the guy knitting and watching the Lifetime Channel. But don't be surprised if I'm wearing a Reagan mask; like heck I want the cool kid to see me with you.
Chris's column runs Mondays. He can be reached at shuptrine@cavalierdaily.com.
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