PRIDE COMES BEFORE A ...THROAT-ACHE

Somebody up there is having a good laugh at my expense. A few days back, I had GLOATINGLY posted a comment on how self-important and self-satisfied I feel when I am down with some illness. Sheer HUBRIS.
Here I am now, feeling completely miserable instead of me-at-the-centre-of-the-universe. This is the merry month of May, when I'm on my summer holiday...but I can't even giggle, let alone laugh aloud.
I have met my nemesis, the sorest throat I have ever had, and eating and talking (two of the greatest joys of my life) are now two painful, throat-wracking/wrecking exercises, preferably avoided completely.
But that is not to be. I have to eat (and drink, water at least) and talk, too, as I am the only one at home, looking after a seven-year-old who needs a verbal-reminder-a-minute to finish her food/milk/homework AND a two-year-old who needs to be read four entire books of nursery rhymes before she deigns to sleep (and, of course, constant verbal cajolings and scoldings when she is awake).
In true Greek-tragedy fashion, I have had an anagnorisis (realization). The one thing I have realized is that a mother’s job is mainly vocal/oral/speech-based. And again, like an authentic Greek tragedy, this realization has come slightly late in the day….
I just want to bawl my lungs out, like a Greek chorus of old women, but every word I speak aloud is AGONY. The self-pity is there alright, but I just wish it’d go away, along with the soreness which seems to scratch down my throat and stretch across to my ears…Oh, for a catharsis of the catarrh....

GOD PROMISE : I will never, ever, be frivolous about fevers or tinker about with throat-sores, I swear on my Aristotle.