If you’ve never seen Rita Moreno and Animal’s version of “Fever” before, enjoy.

I’ve had a fever for five days now. It’s nothing major thus far – 99.0 is as high as it’s gotten – but I usually run around 97.5. It is making me feel more flattened than usual (and usual is pretty flattened). To deal with it, I’ve been doubling up on my inosine, which has antiviral properties. And I’m keeping Chimp busy running back and forth to the freezer for cold compresses.

The temperature came on on Tuesday, with no other symptoms, which seemed slightly weird to me. Not totally weird, because I’ve had chronic fever before. When I was first ill in 2004, I had a fever of 99.5 for about a month, and over the next few months, it gradually subsided.

So I’ve been trying to figure out what was causing it and what to do. I had forgotten my artesunate for a few days, and I was thinking that might be it, because it acts as an antiviral, and maybe missing it for a few days was just enough to give some viral nasty enough of a toehold to get reactivated. Then last night my throat started to hurt.

Well, was that a load off my mind. A regular old rhinovirus? That I will take. And I haven’t had one since 2007, maybe 2006. But where did it come from? Neither Chimp nor my mom, who was visiting when it started, have been sick. They’re both very diligent about washing when they come back into the house, so I don’t think it came directly from either of them.

And then I remembered something: On Tuesday morning, I got a container of mixed nuts out of the pantry that my mom had gotten from Sam’s Club, opened it, and ate some. I remember that because it was the first time in a while I’d felt well enough to get myself a snack. That evening, the fever started. So maybe somebody with a bug handled the container.

I guess this means we will have to put all our snack foods through an autoclave, at least until sick people start staying at home where they belong.