Maybe it is bird flu. Or SARS. Or Y2K.

My husband, who would be a hypochondriac if he had the energy for it (and I mean that in the best way, really), is obviously dying of bird flu. So he says.

Why else would he, a normally healthy 20-something vegetable-loving, sugar-free juice-drinking person have a sore throat, he asks me.

I don't tell him it's because it's November, and that's what bodies do: They get sick, especially in the fall-slash-winter, when the weather changes and everything's all foggy and gross outside.

What follows is a real, actual conversation that happened while the ravioli was boiling and the dog was barking tonight. Just to set the scene. The kitchen is blue, if that helps you.

"It has to be bird flu," he said. "You don't even believe me. Just like no one believed me when I had West Nile a few years ago and then that other guy in Michigan or Ohio got it right after me. Only Neil believed me. And that's just because he had Anthrax poisoning. You wouldn't even believe me if I were dead. You'd just tell my dead body to quit being lazy and get up already for like, three days."

I peek up from the fridge.

"It wouldn't take me three days to realize you died of bird flu. I'd get hungry way before then and be asking you to cook."

And just now, I realize how cruel and cliche that must sound online. I promise you he laughed in real life. And then grabbed his throbbing head. Or was it his forehead, to check for a fever? Or was it his sinuses? His stomach? I forget.

Ah. Dave.

(It's all funny to me now, but when I get this supposed case of bird flu here in a few days from him, I won't be laughing.)