Yep, I lied about posting last Thursday. I tried to stick to that promise, though. My sorry excuse follows.

So out I go to the beautiful coast of Northern California for a few days to soak up the sea air and generally relax in the quiet community of Pacific Grove (minutes away from Pebble Beach, for those of you with golf on the brain. Eat your hearts out). The first couple of days passed pleasantly enough, and it seemed like I was actually going to chalk up one of those rarest of holidays: a restful one.

This, of course, was when the horror began.

It started out innocuously enough; after all, a little sniffle is nothing alarming, and, well, the bathroom window had been open all night, so obviously it’s just a bit of a chill. Nothing to worry about. Nothing, at least, until I awoke with a sputter, and realized that my sinus cavity was a cavity no more. Instead, it had been filled with an obscene gelatinous goo, not unlike the wiggly "chicken Jell-O" that forms at the bottom of the roasting pan overnight when you’re too lazy to wash the dishes from some celebration of gluttony, only more viscous, and not nearly as tasty. I speak from bitter experience.

Its usual companion in crime was also present, the Lump What Don’t Move. You know what I’m talking about. It feels like a garden slug in the back of your throat, just barely outside your gag threshold, never quite reaching it. No amount of swallowing, drinking, or gargling will send it down the pipe to intestinal oblivion, and even the fiercest nasal exhalation- enough to cause seabirds to scatter in terror for miles around, send dogs into whimpering tremors, and the conductors of nearby municipal symphonies to cast sudden, stern glares at their horn section- will not move it one jot.

The last two days of vacation were spent in this state, muddying the otherwise satisfactory delights of not being at work with the omnipresent and terrifying companionship of the wad of nasty glop occupying the front of my head. Even so, this was barely tolerable until the final night, when the denizens of some trailer park were lodged in the neighboring room. Why they were put there I cannot say, because the inn was rather vacant. I also don’t know why the oafish wastrels even decided upon this inn in the first place; they didn’t move from their room once ensconced, and there were much cheaper places to stay to PLAY HAIR METAL ALL NIGHT LONG. What the hell is it with 40-year old people who rent rooms to do this? I resolved then and there to bring a revolver along on every subsequent vacation.

You know how punk-ass kids crank the bass way up in their cars so you can hear the cheap Wal-Mart fiberglass bumper kit rattling loose from their riced-up ‘91 Hyundai Excels in perfect time with the vibration of your fillings? Well, imagine that, only now you’ve got a highly pressurized mass of snot in the front of your head that seems to throb and double its volume on every downbeat, or at least attempt to, within the confines of your skull. Not fun. By the time I clawed my way across the room to open the door and ask them to shut the hell up, the manager had arrived, and convinced them to turn the music down. Until ten minutes after midnight, that is, when somebody decided that the Stryper song, or whatever plays at such an hour, was worthy of further disturbance of the peace. Up went the volume, loud, louder, louder; down came the manager’s heavy footsteps, clomp, clomp, clomp. A few more minutes of scintillating repartee between the manager and the scumbags next door brought the volume back down, and would have brought blissful sleep, but the lump next to my brain continued to pulsate for many hours. Perhaps it was as annoyed as I was to have been woken up, and was taking it out on its host.

I eventually made it back to work, but had to stumble home after half a day, and stayed home on Friday, treating myself to the worst long weekend in recent memory. Things were finally good enough on Monday to risk a return to the living world, where I delighted all and sundry with various awful hacking, retching noises as I gobbed up into my wastebasket, phone reciever, Cup O’ Noodles®, keyboard, and desk drawer. Retreating to the men’s room to engage in a final battle royal with my sinuses, I noticed that the entirety of my forehead -apparently sunburned some five days ago- was peeling, great sheets and ribbons of dead, translucent skin hanging down like the rent sails of a derelict schooner. Quite the dashing visage.

I’m sure all my colleagues are glad to have me back. News of my return seems to have spread quickly, and people I don’t even know are stopping by my cube. Most of them don’t say anything, they just kind of whisper to each other, shoot me a furtive glance, then walk briskly away, but I guess it’s because they know I’m a busy man, back on the job. Yessir. Good to be back.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to empty out my wastebasket.