German Measles

German Measles

The other day I was surfing the net, looking for Sunday Stupid Headlines and I saw this:

Girl's attempt at 'faking chickenpox' to miss test backfires after she uses permanent marker.

Kind of a funny story, except it happened to me.

A zillion years ago, an eleven-year-old future cranky old man was reading comic books.  One of the comics, perhaps a Little Lulu, had a funny bit about someone putting spots on their face to fake the measles and get out of school.

I thought this an interesting idea, and purely as a prank, as it was a Friday night and there was no school the next day; I mimicked measles spots on my face with Mercurochrome. Mercurochrome was a bacterium killing ingredient that was used on kids scratches instead of iodine as it did not sting.   (No longer used due to mercury poisoning or some such silly worry.)

Anyway, as a joke I told my mom, “I think I have the measles.”  As I had already had the measles, I figured she would laugh and then ask, “What have you done?”

Instead she assumed I had Rubella, or what we called German Measles.

She got panicky and immediately sent me to bed.  I did not want to go to bed as it was a Saturday.  Who wants to go to bed on a Saturday?  Also, my brother was scheduled to play that day in a High School Lacrosse all-star game.   Jim was a really good Lacrosse player and I was looking forward to this game.

I told my mom it was just a joke and washed the spots off my face…only they did not come off.  Soon I was feeling really crappy, headache and tired beyond belief…any bright lights were painful.

Talk about karma, I actually had come down with German Measles. 

I spent the next couple of days in bed with no lights and the blinds drawn.  I missed my brother playing in the all-star game, a big disappointment.

I do remember, that after that game my brother came up to my room with his then girlfriend, with a stack full of brand-new comic books and some candy.  Brothers don’t usually do nice things for each other, at least not for younger brothers, I was six years younger than Jim and generally a pain in his butt. 

I think maybe he was a little disappointed that I could not be at the game to enjoy his success…he was a damn good Lacrosse player, he played four years in college at Duke.

Anyway, it was kind of a funny story, karma kicked me in the butt, but left me with a fond memory none-the-less.