MMWUC - Handicap Your Protagonist

Me and the missus have been very sick. We've gone to the doctor. She has the flu and is recovering nicely. I have the "respiratory infection from Hell" (the doctor's words) and am a step away from living out a Stephen King horror story, BYLINA AND THE GIANT BITE-ME BUG THAT HAS NO NAME OR CURE. Great. Now, I'm a step away from the CDC coming to quarantine my house. But, I do have some meds that hold the promise of me getting some sleep tonight.

Doctor's rendition of the
infection he saw.
(bylinous supersillious)

But fighting this superbug with a lack of sleep has given me a new perspective to our crime fighting heroes and their seemingly endless good health. My next short story book, Super Good Guys with Bad Hair Days, features the following--

* watch as Columbo, everyone's favorite rumpled detective, turns an hour long episode into a made-for-TV movie, when a bad case of incurable hiccups forces every interview into a word-pulling marathon. Rather than be subject to another long-rambling, stuttered accusation, the killer reveals himself by killing Columbo. Adrian Monk has to finish up the case. Killer commits suicide.

* stuffed-up with a bad flu for which he refused the help of Doctor Watson, Holmes misses the telltale sign of the dead woman's perfume on the suspect/waiter, fails to hear the drop of the small syringe on the floor, and doesn't detect the acrid taste of the poison injected on his breakfast muffin. Holmes dies; Watson emerges from his shadow.

* observe as 300+ pound William Conrad of Jake and theFatman runs down a another black urban youth and sits on him to await the cops. In my version, he limps from gout for 50 yards as the youth taunts him by running backwards. The Fatman grabs his chest, a heart ache in the making, the kid whips out a $50 from the stash of money. "Buy a Richard Simmons tape tubby." The money floats to the sidewalk, the kid steps backwards into small hole, and twists his ankle. Conrad stumbles forward, face crimson with pain and falls on the kid, trapping him for the police.

I'm rambling, but I have an excuse. What's yours? Throw your good guy a health-inspired curve ball when he least expects or needs it. Up that ante just one last notch.

And as a bonus, you can give him the eye infection I also have for which I have to put drops in my eyes. For me, this is a torture of unbelievable dimensions, but Sydney is not prepared to be a seeing-eye bird.