One of the many things I hate about Christmas shopping is that when I find things to inflict on other people, they are often the same things someone might want to inflict on me. Exhibit A: GIANTmicrobes:

We make stuffed animals that look like tiny microbes -- only a million times actual size! Now available: The Common Cold, The Flu, Sore Throat, Stomach Ache, Cough, Ear Ache, Bad Breath, Kissing Disease, Athlete's Foot, Ulcer, Martian Life, Beer & Bread, Black Death, Ebola, Flesh Eating, Sleeping Sickness, Dust Mite, Bed Bug, and Bookworm (and in our Professional line: H.I.V. and Hepatitis).

I could just see some wag giving me the one for sleeping sickness. This one would make the perfect gift for a certain out-of-control asshole cop who's on a crusade because I didn't diagnose him with venereal disease. I should go down to the lab and nick a Petri dish with some of the real stuff to use as the gift tag.

Usually I'd be grateful to anyone who provided an ironclad excuse for not going up to my mother's for Thanksgiving AND Christmas. But somehow "sorry Mom, can't jump bail this year"... it just isn't the thing for squelching unwelcome conversation.

Speaking of unwelcome conversation, I need to go see Cuddy to beg for a Vicodin before she heads out. I wonder, will she give me a couple to take home? Or will I have to come ring her doorbell in the middle of the night?

Either way, there's going to be a whole lot of stuff she's going to want to talk about that I don't want to even think about. I don't want to think about anything right now. Not until she gives me my damn pills, until I know I can count on turning the pain down another few hours.

This is all Tritter's fault. Why is Cuddy being so weak? If only I could give him a nice Petri dish of flesh eating... of Ebola.