I have decided – after a week of fighting this damned, energy-sapping, freedom-robbing flu bug – to live.

This decision does not come easy. My energy level remains somewhere just above nil, depleted by too much dehydration, sapped by too many purges of my system and stretched beyond the limited physical prowess of old age. I’ve devoured every magazine in the house while sitting on the toilet, used up more toilet paper than those damn bears in the Charmin ads and drank enough liquids to float an oil tanker.

A trip to the doc on Thursday confirmed the flu bug is, indeed behind me, although Amy still faces another day or two of recovery because she can muster up the strength to deliver a promised punishment for bringing this dread disease into Chateau Thompson.

Yard work postponed from last weekend will have to wait another week. Rain dominates the forecast for most of this weekend. Maybe I’ll use Saturday to revisit the Transportation and O. Winston Links museums in Roanoke.

Or maybe I’ll just enjoy not being sick.