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My friend managed to get through an entire day of work last week with horrific food poisoning, without taking any time off. He hid the symptoms all day long—when people passed by his office, when he attended meetings, when he drove across town for a conference (at which, it turned out, he had to speak).

"Every time someone walked by my office, I was like, 'Hey!' and then as soon as they were gone, you know," he said, holding his arms around himself and closing his eyes. "Rocking a little."

I could not stop laughing at every detail. The sweating. The shaking. The strategic running up back stairwells to remote restrooms so bosses and new interns wouldn't see him—both so they couldn't stop him and introduce anyone, and so they wouldn't hear . . . anything. Or know how long he'd been in there.

My friend couldn't understand what was so funny. Being a decent and humble guy, he kept interrupting himself and trying to change the subject with, "Sorry, this is a really boring story," and "And that is way more than you wanted to know about that!" And I kept laughing and saying No, I want to hear more!, and before I could explain why, he would remember something else and go on.

Like how, at one point, before heading across town to a meeting, he stopped at his house, because he had ten minutes to spare. And then he barfed a little, and thought, "Okay. . . ." pant, pant. "Now I'm good." Then he had to sit down again and spend a couple minutes breathing. Then he was running late and had to go.

Because he was only stopping for ten minutes, he parked on the street instead of in the garage. When he got back into his car, he went, "YEAHHHHHH!" Both hands gripping the wheel, face screwed up, screaming. "YEAAAHHHHHHHH!!"—twice—before starting the engine.

I laughed the hardest at that. I totally grilled him about it.

"What do you mean?" I said. "You were just . . . psyching yourself up?? Do you psych yourself up like that in general?? Whenever you have something hard to do?" I thought of all the scenes I'd seen on TV with guys karate chopping themselves in mirrors.

"Yeah. Why?" My friend had no idea why this was interesting.

I kept asking why he didn't go home—or stay home—and my friend insisted that at every turn, he thought the worst had passed.* Until it was too late again.

(*I found out later from his wife that, in fact, the worst did not hit until he was driving home from his meeting, and she came home to find him shivering, feverish, moaning. She was completely frightened. She thought it might be swine flu. At which point I rebuked him roundly, because if there is any chance you could have flu of any type—especially right now—you have to go home!! It's the responsible thing to do!! But he insisted he knew the whole time what flu felt like, and even though he didn't know what was going on, it wasn't that. I find this sketchy and scandalous, but anyway, he didn't have flu, so we'll leave it at that.) 

The rest of the episodes from his day were equally entertaining. The stuff of nightmares. Opening a document with 20 minutes before a meeting, and realizing it's 140 pages. Getting to the conference, which your boss's colleague said the company only needed someone to show up at, and realizing you're one of the few attendees with a nameplate. Thinking frantically of what you're going to say, the whole time the long-winded panel is working its way around to you. Pulling off your spiel so that people are coming up afterward to shake your hand and say they appreciated your presentation, even while you're too disoriented to realize you parked your car in the wrong lot.

I kept pulling details out of him. It amazes me when people don't realize