A Cold
Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while are well aware of my quirks, or as some of you call it, my numerous accounts of neurosis. I don’t recall if I’ve ever touched on this before but I am a bit germ-phobic. I don’t drink from public water fountains, I don’t touch hand rails on stairs and most of all I hate shaking hands with people.
I isolate myself from society pretty well; I try to avoid large groups. I try to go shopping during off hours, and I don’t go to parties. I am obligated to socialize in a few different organizations I am a member of, but there too I always have my eye on an exit.
Last Tuesday I was at a function where a woman sneezing, coughing and hacking up hair balls. I knew she was sick as soon as I entered the room, so I made a point of getting as geographically distant from her as I could. The meeting was almost over and here she comes waltzing in my direction with some papers for me. NOOOOO!!!! I couldn’t escape. I spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in a pissy mood because I knew she got me.
On Friday after noon the tickle began, I started coughing. By five my nostrils no longer worked. I turned into a mouth breather. I spent Saturday and Sunday making up for the sleep I missed from spending the nights coughing and sneezing and waking up from having a dry mouth.
Sinus problems strike me as odd. How is it we evolved with this problem? Horses can not breathe through their mouths and they evolved to never have stuffy noses. What’s up with that, and where does the line form to get that sort of thing fixed.
As I write this on Monday, there are still some residual problems that linger. Both nostrils are working again, every once in a while. The cough has subsided. I’m going to take a nap.
As for the woman who shared her cold with the captive audience, you are a bitch and I will not forgive you.
posted by The Guy Who Writes This at 5:28 AM
13 Comments:
Now I know why you like to duck out on those meetings. Look what happens.
And so your nasty cold confirms the legitimacy of your germ phobia. Can it be classified as a phobia when it originates in fact?
Greetings from a fellow germophobe. I never used to be as bad about it as I've become. Seems the more my immunity weakened, the more of a recluse I became. Good question about the horses. We do tend to take better care of our critters than ourselves it seems.
Auntie, I always have an eye on the door.
Beth, thank you for enabling my neurotic behavior. I owe you one...
Mike, Vets charge less as well.
Vets charge less as well.
That's cause they rarely have to worry about malpractice. Imagine how liberating it must be to be able to "put down" an "uncooperative" patient. LOL!
As to your cold ... eat plenty of hot peppers.
(btw - There used to be a guy in Seaside who always wore surgical masks and gloves when I saw him around town.)
People who are sick and go out in public to possibly spread their disease should be sent to prison or a lonely atoll in the Pacific where nuclear testing was done. I agree, she is a bitch. I'm not a germophobe but I do believe in taking reasonable precautions and being considerate of others when I've come down with something
I used to have terrible sinus problems. They cleared up when I spent a few months in the desert SW and other dry places on my road trip. Fortunately they haven't been bad since, at least not in a chronic sense.
The other day I stood in line at Safeway behind a woman who was coughing up a lung as she was leaning over the belt at the checkout. I stood there thinking about all of the germs she was spewing and all of the innocent victims who would be placing their boxes of cereal on the same belt. Luckily I was standing back a ways and was holding my groceries in a carry basket. Someone with one item stepped in line behind me and I let him go ahead of me so there was a buffer....Yeah, kind of a selfish thing to do but life is tough and only the clever avoid winter colds.
Love,
Anon
Walt, I'm not as bad as that guy, but I'm well on my way, it seems.
Rich the condition for sick people going to work is called "presenteeism". They'd rather be present spreading sickness than be absent and keeping it to themselves.
Love Anon, if you avoided what your husband had two weeks ago, you just might have super powers of immunity.
Hiding is so passive. Why don't you try something active, like beefing up your immune system.
I've lost my taste for alcohol.
Today at work I am surrounded by hackers and those who are "too important" to take the day off from work and stay home so the rest of us don't get sick.
I feel so much better. Thanks for listening.
Cough, cough.
Most of the time when people are coughing they aren't contagious. Unless they are running a fever as well at that point then you're safe. It was before they really got sick and were just feeling a little off that they were shedding their virus all over the place.
I hope you germophobes are cleansing the handles of your shopping carts and the keypads on the debit card machine, unless you use cash and that's just nasty. Did you eve wonder how many sweaty pockets, cleavages, shoes, filthy purses, grubby child's paw that dollar bill was in before you touched it? Paper money is about as clean as used TP.
As for me I figure a well stimulated immune system is better able to handle a real viral attack so I'm going to go eat those stray M&M's I found in the bottom of my back pack.
Every one needs a survival plan.
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