It's officially flu season, which means it is also Man Flu season. Even if you don't know that term, you definitely know the Man Flu experience. It's when a man contracts the flu — or a cold, or any other illness, really — and proceeds to act like his life is in grave danger. He pouts. He groans. He lies in bed and asks you to please bring him soup before he dies.
And if he's blogger Sydney Waters' husband, he actually asks you to call 911 and take him to the hospital. For the flu!
Sydney and her husband, Ty, had a particularly harrowing Man Flu experience one evening a few years ago that resulted in puke everywhere, totally made-up symptoms, and a trip to the hospital.
"I watched my husband transform right before my eyes, stumbling around saying he’s going to puke," Sydney wrote. "The moment he says he’s feeling sick my eyes automatically roll into the back of my head and touch my spine. Instant dread."
The tale recently went viral after being picked up by Love What Matters. Honestly, if you've ever taken care of any sick man ever, Sydney's story will hit close to home. Maybe a little too close to home. Why are men like this?
Sydney Waters and her husband Ty both came down with the flu at the same time. Except while Sydney had the regular flu, Ty had the Man Flu.
You know, the kind that completely debilitates men and turns them into helpless infants for no apparent reason.
Sydney hilariously recapped the entire experience on her blog, Strollin With My Homies.
It all started one evening in 2014, when Sydney was 9 weeks pregnant while also caring for her 6-month-old daughter. It was flu season, a season that Sydney dreads every year because it means Man Flu is coming.
"Just as sure as the sun rises and sets I can count on him to be completely useless for a solid week if he so much as sneezes," she said.
And sure enough, one evening the inevitable thing happened. She felt nauseous all day. And then so did her husband.
"The moment he says he's feeling sick my eyes automatically roll into the back of my head and touch my spine," she wrote. "Instead dread."
Sydney urged Ty to go to the bathroom and puke in the toilet if he needed to, but instead, he puked pretty much everywhere else. The sink. The bathtub. And he was JUST GETTING STARTED.
"He lays on the floor with his eyes closed and starts moaning 'Syd. Syyydd. I can’t. I can’t see….'" Sydney wrote.
"Oh Jesus so now he can’t see? Is this a joke. He has a flu symptom that doesn’t even exist. Actually I can’t. I should probably leave. Where is this dudes mom."
At this point, Ty "played dead like a possum" and whispered to Sydney to please call 911. As in the ambulance. For the flu.
She tried her best to make him realize how absolutely ridiculous he sounded.
"Do you need me to call 911??? We just have the stomach flu and I’M PREGNANT. I’m tired. You’re telling me I am going to pick up the phone and say this is an emergency. You know they’re going to actually come here RIGHT? Right? I’m gonna do it. I’m dead serious,” she said.
And then she did it.
At which point Ty promptly pooped his pants.
Upon realizing that the paramedics were actually coming in real life, Ty realized that he'd probably know one of them, because he's a first responder himself. He leaped up to change his pants, and by the time the paramedics got there, things had shifted a bit.
"Guys it’s like an angel came down from heaven and cured him right there on the spot. All of a sudden he could talk again. He could walk again. He could even see again like a Christmas miracle."
Sydney had to drive behind the ambulance and check Ty into the hospital. Luckily, the nurses totally knew what was going on. Man Flu, nothing more, nothing less.
(Meanwhile, Sydney was also admitted because she was, y'know, actually pregnant and had the flu, which can be dangerous.)
"The nurses keep coming in to give me the I’m so sorry look. The nod all women know. When someone says their man is sick we take a moment of silence for each other. United we stand," she wrote.
But it didn't end there. After the trip home, Sydney found a fresh batch of her husband's mess to clean up. She was, of course, furious.
"I made him wear one of those bird flu masks and didn’t talk to him for a solid 3 days," she said.
But Sydney's husband isn't the only one who acts dramatic when he's sick. Far from it. The story recently went viral on Facebook, where other wives, girlfriends, and moms chimed in with their own experiences of the Man Flu and similar conditions.
Whether it's the flu, a broken bone, or some other injury or illness, you can count on a man to act like a complete baby about it.
Apparently, this sort of behavior starts really young, too.
One mom chimed in with some advice that should absolutely be applied to man-babies of all ages.
Because this is WAY too much effort for any woman to be putting in, let alone a pregnant woman who's also sick!
Sydney's story had some women praising the heavens that they're single.
Because husbands are cool and all, but Man Flu is really not. So just stop it, men. Please?
Before your wives leave you to fend for yourselves.
