UPDATE:

Since I had gotten all of my work completed, and the pains in my head and my chest and my throat weren't getting any better, I did end up coming home. My boss was sympathetic, as she herself was leaving half an hour before I did so she could go to the doctor because, yes, she's been sick all week. I stopped on the way home for an industrial-sized box of Nyquil gelcaps and some Ben & Jerry's. The Ben & Jerry's soothed my throat as much as I'd hoped it would, although now that I exercised some self-control and put half of it back into the freezer, my throat's raw and owie-ful again.

Also, I must take this opportunity, before I pass out (I hope, anyway), to inform you that I have a very, very, very smart dog. Molly avoids the bathroom. It is the room of baths, the room where she is stripped of her dignity and filth as she gets forced into the bathtub and sudsed and rinsed. She will come visit me in any room in the house except the bathroom. Once I was in the bathtub with the door open, and called her to me. I watched her go down the hall, resolutely avoiding the making of eye contact, and heard her slither under the bed in the guest room. I'm familiar with that eye contact avoidance, since it's the technique I use with the people who sell hand creams at little kiosks in the mall. So you've got it, right? Molly hates the bathroom.

However, if we're home and she has to go out, but cannot rouse us from slumber, she goes to the bathroom in the bathroom. Not only does she go in the bathroom, but she goes right in front of the toilet, where I'm bound to step in it when I sleepily toddle to the bathroom at 3 a.m. She doesn't do that when we're not home; if she absolutely must go when we're gone, she considerately uses the piddle pads we leave out for her. No, it is only when we are at home but insensitive to her needs that she goes into the bathroom to make her statement. See, I think that's brilliant of her. She knows what purpose the toilet is intended for, and I guess she figures she's one of us and may as well use the facilities like we do.

So instead of griping that I only very occasionally find a puddle or a pile in the bathroom at 3 a.m., I should be grateful that she condescends to go outside when she can get us to let her out, or on the piddle pads during the day. Right? Right?