In my many long years of getting sick, sicker, even sicker, and under the wings of hovering Death, I have concluded there are four ways uniquely suited to get you sick, sicker, then sickest.
I do not count sitting in a doctor’s office full of people NOT wearing masks who claim their cough is “just an allergy.”
No, I mean “out in the real world” where shit happens.
These are the four best ways to catch whatever is going around.
1 – Be an elementary school teacher. You will be sick ALL the time. Just keep the Tamaflu handy and the tissues and throat lozenges nearby.
2 – Work in a mall. You will earn very little money and you are doomed to endless disease. A single sneeze can infect everyone in half the mall. Two sneezes? Total collapse of all immune systems.
3 – Be a working reporter. You will meet everyone everywhere and at least 75% of them will have something lurking, just waiting for you and your cameraman to show up. When Garry was working, he had a cold, the flu, bronchitis, sore throats, ear infections. You name it, he had it. Four days later? I had it too. We believe in sharing.
This probably applies to politicians on the stump and performers on tour. Which is probably why they won’t shake hands. All they see are germs.
4 – Take an airplane anywhere. The recycled air is putrid. I swear this is true — takes whatever diseases every passenger has on the plane and pumps it up. I have never taken a flight anywhere and not gotten sick within 10 days.
Except Arizona. Maybe it’s that lovely, hot, dry air or something. We survived both trips to Arizona and we felt actually better after a week in the warm, dry air.
I should add one more: life in the cold north of America where it’s always damp and the air is full of allergens. And never, ever go to see the doctor if you aren’t already diseased unless you know for sure nobody sick will be there. Those allergic coughs are not allergies.
Schools are like petrie dishes for illness. When the flu was going around a couple of months back, I was at a Walmart in SC and saw a couple of people with masks on. I didn’t know if they were sick or trying not to get sick. Either way, they were taking charge of the situation. 🙂
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The mall wasn’t crowded. I don’t know why we thought we were safe. Stupid. We have boxes of masks!
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For Garry, the WORLD was a giant petrie dish. Wherever he went, someone sneezed or coughed at him. Channel 7 was not really good about giving time off for sickness, either.
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My uncle (now deceased) moved to Arizona from Maryland just for the beneficial reasons you stated. He said he felt more healthy than he had for years. Me? It’s just too damned HOT 75% of the year to tolerate. Thanks for the timely list of ways to catch whatever goomboo is going around. I’m slated to go to two doctors’ appointments tomorrow…one of them ‘just for paperwork’, but I BET there’ll still be random unkillable germs floating about. And I’m considered weird for being so germ phobic…me? I call that self preservation.
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The older I get, the more germophobic I get. I’ve got a lot of implants and replacement pieces in this body. They don’t LIKE being sick. Neither does the rest of me.
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Isolation seems to be a good approach but when you have to get out you’re vulnerable.
Leslie
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And it just happened to be exactly when “something was going around.” It’s that time of year. Again.
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It is…
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I agree. I noticed since I no longer mix with people and do not go places I rarely catch anything.
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We made the mistake of … gasp … going to the mall. Worse, we have — things to do — during the next month. Events. With people. I’m sure we’ll be sorry.
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