Eagle editor repents for everyone to get over sickness

This archived article was written by: Leland Lobato

OK, so I’m not sure if anybody noticed, but I did not submit an article for the last issue of The Eagle. I apologize to the readers of our wonderful publication, and also to The Eagle staff who had to pick up my slack and fill some space that they normally don’t have to worry about.
On that note, I give to them a sincere and heartfelt HOORAY and thank you for the great work they did and do, especially to Benjamin Waldon for his excellent article that he wrote to fill up the space I left unoccupied. So in the spirit of “thank you” it is my wish to hopefully entertain you with the explanation of my absence in the last issue. So sit back and put your feet up, because it is now story time, after which I strongly urge everyone to go take a nap.
It all started with a trip to Salt Lake City a few weeks ago to see one of my favorite bands, The Roots. For those of you that do not know who The Roots are, you have my pity. I went to The Roots concert and had one of the best times I have ever had at a concert. Afterwards, myself and several of my friends that accompanied me to the show, proceeded to get thoroughly plastered.
Not that we didn’t get a good start at the concert, but were a little preoccupied with the music to apply the proper amount of concentration that partying requires. The rest of the trip was spent sleeping in the daytime and doing more partying at night.
During this trip we happened to visit a certain den of iniquity that specializes in the presentation of scantily clad young people of the female persuasion, engaging in a style of dance one might refer to as exotic. Needless to say this was quite an enjoyable excursion to our state’s capital city.
So I get back to Price and am sitting at work, hungover and ready to dive into my bed or, to be honest, any bed. Heck, I would have settled for an unoccupied piece of carpet in the corner somewhere and just used my shirt for a pillow. It really was not necessary to tell that last part but it happened so I figured it should be included. Nothing gets left out in the telling of a Leland story.
By Monday, I woke up feeling great, but by the time the sun had set, I developed a little cough and a fever. By Tuesday I was wishing someone would just come up to me and put a shotgun to my forehead and pull the trigger. I’m not quite sure but I think I caught something the military was developing to use against our enemies, or it was some kind of mutant virus that has been through hell and decided it was time for a return to the mortal realm and then of decided to inhabit my lungs.
I ended up missing a few days of work and several of my classes because of it. However I still showed up to a couple of my classes to take tests because I am hardcore like that.
Sometime during the week, my friend that I hung out with called me and said he was sick too. After a few seconds of conversation, we determined that we were afflicted with the same thing. We could not figure out where we picked up whatever ailed us, but personally I blame the topless bar we went to.
So for the whole part of two weeks, I am going through the worst sickness I have ever had to deal with in my entire life. I’m coughing, randomly throwing up and just feeling all around miserable. I was coughing so bad it felt like one or more of my internal organs was plotting an escape and their chosen route was through my mouth. Which now that I think about it is actually preferable to the alternative route of escape.
I cannot even begin to explain how horrible I was feeling, but just to give an idea of how it felt, I prayed to God, either to not let me die or to end my life immediately so that I would not have to deal with all the agony. Some of the things I was saying: Oh God, please don’t let me die, I don’t think I’m ready yet. If that is not possible then please God, please just kill me right now, I can’t take this anymore. (At this point I paused and looked up waiting to be stricken dead. To my extreme disappointment I was not. Yet I did wish to continue living, I only wanted to know what I had to do to make the hurt go away.)
I also started to apologize for basically everything under the son that was not good. “I’m sorry for everything I ever did that was wrong, I really am. I was just being dumb. I’m sorry for all the things my friends did wrong. I’ll try to tell them not to do it again. I’m even sorry for everything I heard about that was wrong.”
I then went on to pray for the future of everybody I loved and asked that everybody could be OK when I am gone and that they all have good lives all in between some more of my trying to prevent something inside of me from escaping.
If it is not apparent to anyone, I honestly thought I was going to die. It completely and totally did that one thing that a vacuum cleaner does when you turn on the power, what is that called again? Oh yeah, I remember now, it sucked!
So I finally got the big light bulb above my head and went to the doctor. She gave me some antibiotics and some of the best cough syrup you could ever ask for. I am almost completely well again, three and a half weeks later. That is way too long to be sick. I hallucinated a little bit for a day or two and not even in a good way like when I used to do it on purpose. In the end I just felt like I just got off of an insane two or three week partying spree with absolutely none of the benefits of the afore mentioned activity.
I have regailed my tale of my goings on of the last month for two reasons. The first is to let people understand that I was in no shape to do hardly anything, let alone write my article. Come to think of it, I probably should not have taken those tests.
My other reason for telling you my story is that no matter how bad you may think things are, they can always be worse. You could go through something like I went through, and then it could still be worse than that. In the wise words of one of my best friends, “it could be worse, you could have no legs.”