I may have leprosy.

No lie, I have been sick since June rolled it's humid ass into Arkansas. In the process I have formed a personal relationship with my doctor, something I have always avoided. This is the man who has to see me beg for sedatives, the man who stands unflinchingly in the line of fire breath during a bout of strep throat, the man who knows exactly how much I weigh. This is not a man with whom I want to create memorable impressions. I want him to forget my existence when I leave his office, my co-pay securely transactioned by his receptionist.

Instead, he now knows my real name, not the official name that populates my medical records and employment applications. It's just a middle name, nothing fancy like a mob nickname or anything. But it's how I differentiate between those I don't care to chat with (doctors, credit card companies, the weird neighbor who keeps asking for my "chat" i.d.) and those I do (friends, family, Robert Downey, Jr.). And to top it off, the nurse has "befriended" me. That's in quotations because let's be honest, we're not really friends. We just share laughs about how every time I come in and she asks me when my last menstrual cycle cycled on through, I respond with "three weeks ago." After she got that same answer seven weeks in a row she told me she knew exactly what my problem was- I was packed FULL of shit.

No, actually, I'm packed full of plegm with a little useless trivia thrown in for fun. (The Golden Girls premiered in 1985! The heaviest element is Uranium!)

The best thing to come out of all of this? I now know what it's like to be a fifteen-year-old boy. Thanks to several weeks of steroids I experienced the following:

1) Misplaced rage and an increased combative nature. Case in point: While walking through the Detroit airport I got so fed up with a woman who blocked my passage on the moving walkway I started to curse her, IN MY LOUD VOICE, and then sort of gently connected her rolling suitcase with my patent leather flat. Excuse me ma'am, my name is Temper, last name Tantrum.

2) Men are strangely attractive, even when they're not. I think that actually makes me a homosexual teenage boy if we stick with the analogy from above. Anygay, it's not that I don't find men attractive in a steroid-free world, it's just that I didn't appreciate the sheer number of hot y chromosomes strutting around. My usual standards were thrown out the window (too short, too tall, too stupid and listens to tween pop on his ipod) and suddenly everyone, in the words of Marlon Brando, coulda been a contender.

3) Teenage Fucking Acne. Oh yes. The malfunction at Skin and Pore Streets was just a taste, just a dangling dingleberry of what was to come. And apparently is still coming, all over my WAIT. Sorry. I should also mention that I developed the ability to make tasteless jokes at random. Back to the acne. It's awesome and very teenagery. So if we follow that out to its logical conclusion, that means the acne actually makes me look YOUNGER. I have found the secret to eternal youth. Spread the word.

4) "Are you going to eat that?" became my mantra. I have never been so hungry, never ever, not even when I managed to do things like exercise or let's be honest, extend any sort of physical effort whatsoever. During my steroid spell, I woke up in the middle of the night to EAT. In addition, I ate two breakfasts, two lunches and three dinners. It was during this cheek stuffing spell that I had flasbacks to my little brother's teen years and how we used to order an extra large pizza just for him. And how he ate it. All of it. But my brother had the metabolism of an actual teenage boy while I was just experiencing teenage boy-like symptoms. My metabolism remained firmly grounded in the nearing-thirty range, which lead to:

5) Weight gain! Nearly ten pounds in the first ten days! Insert fat ass jokes HERE.

Overall, I'd say my steroid abuse was pretty fucking lame, dude. (Keeping the teenage slang alive here at birdsovafeather!) I've still got an annoying cough and a very depleted checking account because apparently one can't just google one's symptoms and call in to request specific medication. They like to see you in person so they can do things like weigh you and check your glands. Greedy bastards.