I cured a cold in a week.

My friends know that I rarely get sick. I am capable of massive amounts of whining about inconsequential things in my life or stressing about those same things, but sickness and me? Not really a match. Perhaps it is my good genes (thanks, Mom) or just the fact that I regularly eat quite a bit of fruits and vegetables, but my immune system treats me well.

Let's rewind to two weeks ago, the final night of our cook club. My coworker, Ms. Sass, spends the night at my house afterwards, a veritable slumber party with stupid girl movies and giggling long after we were supposed to be asleep. Ms. Sass seems to have the opposite luck with the illness. She catches something if she hears someone sneeze. Of course, two days later, she sends me a text message and tells me, "Just so you know, I have strep throat so bad that I had to go to the ER."

Great. Even though I am pretty tough, I start to feel a tickle in my throat the next day. To me, it feels like I am getting a cold, but I don't know, I've never had strep throat. My throat progresses into a rather annoying cold, not strep throat. So I go through the motions of buying orange juice and cold medicine and extra tissues for my constantly running nose. In the meanwhile, Ms. Sass has to go the hospital for her ailments (poor gal.) She is in the hospital for five days. Me? I am essentially cured in a week. The orange juice seemed to help.

The sad bit? Ms. Sass was supposed to be en route to greener pastures, AKA California. Literally, greener pastures, or so the cows in the commercial say (you know, "Happy cows come from California"?). Lucky for her, she was able to just work an extra week, be covered under insurance and then proceed westward.

And I get one more week with Ms. Sass in our lovely office kicks. I am glad she's on the mend. I'm glad my cold is gone. But I am sad I am losing my best office bud.

I may be able to cure a simple cold in a week, but she gets to move her life to sunny California.

The office will be a lot lonelier for me without her. And short a lot of sass.