Well, it took me long enough, but I feel I am finally getting over the cold that I have been in the process of catching for a month now.

Most people are around somebody who has a cold, catch the disease, then are over it. But me, I seem to be able to hang around with somebody who has a cold for several weeks before actually catching the virus. When I finally catch it, I take just as long to recover.

This cold was one which I measured in how bad it could get. I caught it from my father, who was over his version of the virus the next day. But me, I just started sneezing often for a few days, and gradually it got worse. Some nights I could hardly get to sleep because of sneezing at night.

Finally, I guess last Friday I caught the disease full-fledged. It started acting up as soon as I got to the Easley-Greenwood high school football game. My nose started running as if it were an Olympic athlete. I simply found a seat on the visitors’ side of the field and let my nose run through the game. I even left before the Green Wave scored their last touchdown because I was so miserable. I meant to stay behind and get comments from Easley coach John Windham, but I couldn’t imagine anyone having anything to say to me but “Please don’t breathe your disease onto me.”

So to keep my quotes from being about snot, I went ahead and left early.

I got home and did not get much sleep that night due to my cold. I awoke the next day for the Clemson-Miami game, which started at noon. I fell asleep around halftime, then dozed through the rest of that game, and later the Florida State-Georgia Tech game.

Sunday we had lunch served at our church. I stayed at home being miserable. My mother brought me home a piece of chicken for lunch, and I enjoyed it as if it were a full meal.

Finally I went to bed during the first quarter of Sunday night’s Carolina Panthers game. After sleeping a few hours, I woke up in the middle of the night and my nose actually was not running. I tried this new process that people are calling breathing. It felt good, and I worked a few word-find puzzles and got my first decent night’s worth of sleep.

I woke up Monday morning and was ready to take on the world again.

My birthday is Halloween, and for a while I was afraid that the newspaper would read “Ben Robinson would have been” today.

So I am back. I’ve decided not to get sick anymore, because quite frankly I do not enjoy it. I’m ready to take on the world again.