Growing up we were always trying to think of the perfect illness: one that made it absolutely mandatory that you stay in bed, but made you feel well enough to eat foods you like, talk, enjoy television, and maybe play table football or some other very low impact sport. I think one day we agreed on head lice but I'm still not completely convinced.

A while ago I got sick and it wasn't head lice or any other near-perfect sickness, but there was still a ton to do. Here are things you can do when you're sick, organized by great and terrible for your convenience.

Great things to do:

Hot socks magic trick

Right before you go to sleep, put on very hot wet cotton socks, then dry regular-temperature wool socks. You'll wake up with dry feet and no runny nose WHERE DOES THE SNOT GO? I have no idea.

Take the longest shower ever

If it ends it's too short.

Drink tea

I recommend licorice, peppermint, ginger, chamomile, lemon, chai, cinnamon, echinacea, kava, or hazelnut. And I don't even know what a few of those words mean.

Watch Cat Parade

Take a taxi

When I didn't have a way to get home and I was too tired to walk or take the bus I called a taxi and luckily it was a magic taxi, the warmest and darkest and most comfortable in the world, and it smelled like gingerbread, and the taxi driver was like an even prettier friendlier taxi-driving Carey Mulligan. I may have been hallucinating. Which brings me to,

Terrible things to do:

Hallucinate

Rinse your mouth with salt water

It's like tasting death!

Drink red liquid medicine

This isn't so much a blog post as a promise to my mom that I'm going to take better care of myself.