Last week*, I had the pleasure of sharing my body with the influenza virus. No, I’m not being sarcastic. I kind of dig having the flu. Sure, there’s the fever and the sweating and the yacking. But after all that, if you’re really lucky, you might just be given the pleasure of having The Sexy Voice.
Yes, that’s right, The Sexy Voice. A deeper, manlier voice. A voice that seems to come from some other entity inside. A voice that makes heads turn. A voice of authority. A voice of influence. A voice that cannot be ignored. It is The Sexy Voice, and it is exclusively mine.
I had The Sexy Voice last week, but not for long. I was given the gift for less than a day. And that’s just the thing about The Sexy Voice: You never know how long you’re going to have it. So the moment you get it, you have to work fast. Call your friends and see if they can tell who’s calling. Rerecord your voicemail greeting. And if you work in Advertising (as I do), walk around the agency, reading as many radio and TV scripts as you can. People will tell you, you should do voiceover work professionally. Thank them for the compliments, but don’t let it all go to your head. Because, before you know it, The Sexy Voice will be gone.
Which brings us to today. I woke up at around 5:00 AM, hacking and coughing. The time of the sexy voice has past. I am now nothing more than another victim of the flu, sniffling and sneezing, wondering when this torture will be over. When I try to speak, I sound like Satan going through puberty. It’s not a pretty voice. It’s not a sexy voice. It’s the voice of a sick, pathetic old man. And I can live with that — as long as it means I have those few precious hours of joy where my vocal chords sound like they’re lined with velvet.
Of course, I know influenza is a very serious virus, capable of killing someone if not properly controlled. But I still refuse to get a flu shot every year. It’s not just because I have an overwhelming fear of needles (even though that’s the biggest reason), or that the influenza virus mutates every year, making the flu “vaccine” nothing more than an educated guess. No, there’s another reason, a very stupid reason. A reason that is pretty obvious by now, but I’m going to wait to tell you, just so I can add more rhythm to this paragraph and end it dramatically. That reason, of course, is The Sexy Voice.
*By “last week,” I mean more like last year. When I started writing this blog entry, I really did have the flu the week before. But it took me months to finally get around to finishing it. Yeah. Talk about procrastination.
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