Consumption junction.

I'm dying. I'm convinced. I am on my deathbed. My throat is swollen and it is making it impossible for me to breathe and when I do breathe I cough and then I sneeze and ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

So yeah, I have a cold. I am not at my most fabulous. This is coming after a wonderful weekend of friends and fun and pirates at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The pirates had too little eyeliner for my taste, but they had some rockin' pieces of eight. And I touched the shit out of them.

Now that I think of it, the touching at the museum is probably what led me to be in this state. I never should have gone to the children's section of the museum! Children are like walking petri dishes of plague! Curse the enticing dinosaur fossils!

But my feverish mind is causing me to digress.

The point of my story came after the fun and exciting weekend. Three of my friends stayed over for dinner and drinks and hot tub in the abnormally frigid weather, so the next morning, one of my friends went with me to fetch breakfast tacos at a taco shack across town. On our way, we stopped at a CVS to pick up some sodas. We were the only ones in the store, and the sweet little old lady at the register was super chatty.

As she bagged the bottles, I handed them to my friend to carry.

"Oh, I just love that," she said. "Every time couples come in, the guy is always the one who carries the bags!"

"They're not good for much else, am I right?" I replied with a knowing wink, as my friend rolled his eyes.

Ah, the wonderful versatile gay. He can be mentally paired up with anyone, gay or straight. I've passed him off as my boyfriend countless times. And when he goes out with a male friend, people assume that they're a couple. He can pass in any social setting.

But right now, all I care about is someone passing me the Nyquil.