You know the old saying, "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer"? It's good advice, generally speaking. Sometimes it's even better to be surrounded by your enemies. At least they won't talk to you, or try to help you.

There are few things more traumatizing to the psyche than being helped by a friend. Especially that one friend. You know what kind of friend I'm talking about. We all have one, sometimes we even have more than one. And they take it in shifts.

I'm talking of course, about that friend who "means well" but somehow always knows just what to say to make things even worse. Of course, they don't do it all the time. Or else then you could be prepared. They don't even do it on purpose. They just can't help themselves.

Just a little bit ago, I was sitting here in front of my computer, trying not to move my head or my eyes because of what I suspected was a fairly serious sinus infection. I've had this headache off and on for four days now. It's bad enough that I can't decide which is more likely, that the pressure will turn my face into a double-barreled eyeball gun, or just completely explode my head a la "Scanners."

My friend (I don't want to put him on the spot here, but his initials are Caleb Warner), came in and asked, as friends do, how I was doing. I groaned and told him about my four-day headache, that I thought it was a sinus infection, and that I was going to the doctor tomorrow.

He nodded sympathetically and said, "Yeah, headaches are the worst. Hopefully it is just a sinus thing, because it could be meningitis."

Yeah. That helped. I'm miserable, have been for days, and now I've got to worry that I have meningitis! Woo-hoo! I don't even really know what meningitis is, but I know I don't want it and now, apparently, I'm going to die of it.

After I pointed out to him that his meningitis comment really didn't help, he tried, God help me, to fix it. "Is your neck stiff?" he asked, "Does it hurt to move your head? Can you touch your chin to your chest?" because those are also symptoms of meningitis, and he figured that if I didn't have them, then I wouldn't worry about it.

Unfortunately, my neck IS stiff, it DOES hurt to move my head and I CAN'T touch my chin to my chest. The fact that my neck is always stiff, and there's just too much, let's just say "adipose tissue" between my chin and my chest in no way makes me feel any less convinced that I'm doomed to die of meningitis.

But wait, he's not done yet. He goes on to dismissively mention the mental symptoms: "Yeah," he said to my neckular inflexibility, "but most people with meningitis are also "de . . ." he remembered he was talking to me, ". . . lu . . ." he seemed to suddenly remember what I'm like ordinarily, ". . . sional. Ummmm . . . never mind." Then he remembered a very important meeting that he'd forgotten he was late for, and ran out the door, "I'm sure you'll be fiiiiiiiiiine," trailing behind him like a scream from a man jumping off a cliff.

Of course, when he did come back, he was quick to pass his comments off as, "My mom's a nurse. That's what I grew up with. It's always the worst possible thing. Until it isn't. Ha ha ha . . . ha ha . . . ha?"

I suppose it really isn't his fault. Of course, that doesn't make me feel any better about dying from meningitis. There's always the chance that I was right originally, and that it is just a sinus thing.

If you don't see any more articles from me, I guess you'll know.