Things that used to be better when I was your age… Being sick.

When you’re young, being sick is awesome. About 90% of the time you’re only kind of sick. Only mostly sick. You’re sick enough that all you can do for the entire day is sit around, watch TV and drink soup.  On occasion, there’s that rare 10% where you’re actually in some sort of real pain, which sucks. But most of the time? Awesome.Back in elementary school, you run a little fever, have a bad sore throat, or spend the night vomiting, you’ve got yourself an automatic Get-Out-of-School-Free card. Congratulations. Everyone feels bad for you, your mom waits on you rather than nagging you to clean your room, and you don’t have to do ANYTHING. Ah yes, those were the days.Now? Not so much.You get sick now, there’s no sympathy. Not from friends, family or teachers. You get sick at my age and you’re just a nuisance — a leper, even. People don’t want to hang out with you, they don’t want to see you. Why? Because they know that if they’re in close proximity to you, they could get sick and they’ll have to endure the same treatment that they’ve been giving you.And that treatment — it’s no fun. You can still sit around all day, you can still watch TV, and you can still drink soup. So what’s the difference, you may ask. Difference is, when you’re young, missing things doesn’t mean shit. You have no real responsibilities. Miss a week of school? Who cares? All you were going to do was read a couple books, do some more multiplication tables and push Sally off the swing set. That shit isn’t going anywhere.These days, we have responsibilities. Most of the time, responsibilities aren’t so terrible, because they’re accompanied by things called “privileges,” which we usually take for granted. Things like drinking, and girls, and cars, and staying up as late as we want. But along with all those good things, there’s also grades that mean something, theses to write, and job applications to complete. And guess what? When you’re sick, people still expect you to fulfill those responsibilities. It’s ridiculous.So while all you want to do may be to sit around, watch TV and drink soup, you must — in your weakened state — keep up with the responsibilities of daily life. Unless you’re dying, nobody cares that you’re sick. Suck it up, son.That’s the other thing. When you get sick at my age, it’s always an actual sickness. Nobody really fakes it anymore because it means you can’t go out and enjoy all those privileges that we’ve waited years to obtain. So not only are you really sick, but the world has the nerve to keep rotating on its axis. Fuck you, world.This year, on Princeton’s campus, things are even worse. Why? The Swine. It’s a disease that’s gripping the nation like “So You Think You Can Dance?” except with fewer celebrities in funny outfits.Back in the day, when you got sick, you could go to McCosh Health Center and be treated for your illness. Now? Self-diagnose, self-isolate is the official policy. If you go into McCosh, they will yell at you. And it'll be all your fault. Stay in your dingy dorm room, you selfish miscreant. And you get no Tamiflu. None.So not only do you end up sick, but now your only source of medical assistance comes from WebMd and a friend who’ll go to CVS for you. (This may actually be a plus for the roughly 85% of students on campus who consider themselves burgeoning versions of Dr. House.) On the upside, the new doctrine has rendered McCosh the nation’s first university-run alcohol rehabilitation center. So we’ve got that going for us, which is nice.Still, none of this changes the fact being sick just ain’t what it used to be. Stay healthy, my friends.P.S. Yes, I was sick during the writing of this post. And I still had to write it. See what I mean about responsibilities? Sucks.