If your office is anything like mine, when one person gets sick, the germs sweep the whole company like wildfire. No one is left unscathed. Everyone in the department stocks up on airborne and hand sanitizer in a feeble attempt to escape the inevitable. I recently got caught up in an epidemic—fever, chills, sweating uncontrollably, cough, runny nose … the works—and found myself having to stay home two full days in a row. But my loss is your future gain as I have now compiled the “Top 5 Things to Watch While Sick.”

1. Your friends are too disgusted by you to come over and hang out, yet you are starved for human interaction. So obviously, you turn on Friends. There are ten full seasons of greatness (OK, maybe like six full seasons of greatness and then four full seasons of … just ness) including some great episodes where the Friends themselves are sick. In episode 403- The One with Rachel’s Sister- Monica is super sick but still tries to get Chandler to have sex with her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or there’s the one where Phoebe and Charlie Sheen get chicken pox, or the one where Joey gets a hernia or the one where Ross still goes to the pediatrician. The list goes on/pretty much ends there.

2. Any sci-fi movie, for no other reason than the weird fever dreams you will have. My choice was Oblivion starring Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman. I could not recap that movie if I tried but I can say that I had a dream about my childhood best friend’s house with a Tom Cruise in every room and they didn’t know about each other. I kind of wish just one room was Morgan Freeman though. You know, to keep with the Tom:Morgan ratio of the film.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Nature documentaries are great for drifting off to sleep. Anything narrated by a British person is preferred. Just let that soothing accent describing a honey badger fighting and brutally killing a cobra lull you into a deep, comforting slumber.

4. This is the best time to watch really, really horrible scripted television. If you watch something like Pretty Little Liars or anything on the CW while you’re at full strength, the unnecessary plot twists and awkward dialogue might send you into a rage. In your weakened state, you can only accept it and passively let it wash over you. Who knows? Maybe you’ll find the show actually appealing. But probably you’ll just fall asleep again.

5. The Price is Right. Because obviously.