I may be well informed about illness as the health & medicine editor, but that doesn’t make me immune to heinous stomach flus. Last Thursday, I was gripped by one while sitting at my desk. My trusty plastic garbage bin deserves an award for catching the torrent I unleashed into it with my mouth. Not to mention my colleague Anna Katterjohn, who had to hear it.

But I digress…this is a blog about what you do when you’re recovering from violent illness. You sure as hell don’t read books because it’s hard to keep your head up and your eyes open. I certainly didn’t have the physical or mental strength to take in even a trashy US Weekly. The way I see it, one brutal stomach spasm deserves a good belly laugh, so after I weathered the worst of the upchucking, I popped in season one of the cult comedy sketch show The Kids in the Hall, newly minted on DVD.

I came for the excellent parodies of teen angst crossed with rock’n'roll fantasy, not to mention the top-shelf drag and satire of corporate America (which predates The Office by over 15 years!). Little did I know I’d be treated to an impressive dose of book-inspired material.

My favorite example from my weekend viewing marathon: gay martini-sipping raconteur Buddy Cole (as played by Scott Thompson,  pictured below) considers the whole desert island scenario. His choice of book? Why, Peggy Hertz’s All About Rhoda (Scholastic, 1975), a now out-of-print guide to the Valerie Harper vehicle that can be had for between $1 and $8 on AbeBooks.com. His choice of companion? The one and only Oscar Wilde, who in his attempts to be a witty island mate shamelessly steals quips from other famous people, including Buddy (e.g., “Now I may have been born yesterday, but I still went shopping!”).

And how can I forget Dave Foley doing The Dr. Seuss Bible? It’s too long and potentially offensive to paste in here, but it’s damn witty and made the cut of a Dr. Seuss webliography compiled by a professor at Kansas State University. Read it and weep—and always, always wash your hands!