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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
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Man, I hate sick people.
Which sounds mean, I know, but they're just nasty. And when they get better, I like them again, so it's not so bad, right?
(Assuming I liked the bastards in the first place. Which isn't terribly likely, frankly. Which means that when the vast majority of people get sick, my impression of them doesn't really change much -- and that's the way it's supposed to be, so I'm back to sounding 'normal' again. It just took a while to get there, is all.)
Now, a couple of things, before I go any further. First, I'm not talking about sick sick people. The terminally ill and tragically vetetative are okay in my book. I don't bother them, and they... well, most of them aren't really up to bothering me, so we're cool. Those kinds of 'sick' people don't count.
I also want to stress that I feel the same way about myself, when I'm sick, as I feel about others. When there's a sick person out there in the world, sneezing on me or hacking up a lung beside me or using the back of my head as a hanky, I simply think:
'Man, this asshole should lock himself in his house, down some codeine, and not fricking bother society again until he can do it without snurfling all over the damned floor. Hosebag.'
And let me assure you, that's exactly what I want to do when I'm sick -- and feeling like a hosebag asshole. So don't think I'm being all high and mighty with my sixk-sist attitude. I'm willing to turn the snark around on myself, too, ya know.
But I'm not sick right now. No. Half my freaking office is sick, or has been recently, but I've been spared so far. And that's what pisses me off -- I'm the one writing this tripe, and even I feel obligated to add 'so far'.
Because it's coming -- I can see it. I don't feel sick, or anything like that, but the exposure is piling up. Last week, this one woman was out sick for four of the five days. Smack in the middle, she tried coming in -- and believe me, 'hump day' was not kind to her. Red nose, puffy cheeks, watery eyes -- she looked like Tammy Faye Bakker right after one of her waterworks sessions. Or Ted Kennedy after... well, after anything, really. The Tedster always looks like he's just had himself a good long cry. And a nine-martini lunch, too, which only enhances the overall effect.
Anyway, how do I know how miserable this girl looked? Why, because her one meeting of the day was with me, of course. And a few other people -- but none of them sat one seat away from her. Oh, no -- those douchebags clustered waaaay on the other side of the table, cowering and hiding from her mongo germs. Nobody told me she was sick, so I could keep a safe distance. Unh-uh. So I plopped my ass right in the middle of Typhoid Mary's personal germ tsunami, and sat through an hour of yippity-yap while trying not to frigging breathe. I can just feel those little bastard germies incubating in me right now.
And if those cooties don't get me, the ones I caught today will. Another meeting, and for once -- for once in my fricking life -- I was early. So, I picked a seat, and the other people filled in around me. Including another sick woman, who sat right. Fucking. Next. To me. Bitches!
(And she says she caught her bug from the first lady. How she managed to do that from across that meeting room last week is beyond me. Maybe that was all for show, and they were off locking lips in the lounge when nobody was looking -- I don't know.
But if those germs did bust her ass from all the way across the conference room, what chance do I have against them, now that I've sat right next to them? Twice! Somebody pass the Sudafed, dammit -- I'm illin' just thinking about it.)
So, I had another meeting -- this one nearly two hours long -- with Little Miss Snottypants snorking and snerfling and honking next to me. And she didn't look so good, either. Not quite Teddy Kennedy sick, but close. Sort of Tip O'Neill-y, only before all of that... well, dying he did a few years ago. She didn't look that bad.
But soon, I might. The germs are out to get me, and I'm not a pretty patient, folks. When I have the luxury, I try and follow the advice I outlined above when I'm sick; I stay as motionless -- and preferably unconscious -- as possible for the duration of the illness. Personal hygeine can go to hell when I'm sick -- showering, shaving, finding clean underwear... these are all niceties for people that are well. If I'm sniffly, sneezy, aching, coughing, and all-the-rest-of-that-shit miserable, then just let me sleep it off. I'll worry about the funk when I can breathe again, dammit. Just leave me alone to sleep, rehydrate, and moan.
(And blog, of course. But only because I love you guys. See what I'd do for you? Who blogs ya, baby?)
Anyway, here's hoping my immune system pulls some kind of miracle out of its ass and fights these ubergerms off. If I'm gonna get to miss a week's worth of work, it is not going to be because I'm laid up in bed with a chicken soup IV, dammit. I want to be living the high life somewhere -- sipping mai tais on a beach in Maui, or snorting coke off a stripper's back in Vegas, or lying face-down in a puddle of gin and rain and bodily fluids in New Orleans. That's worth taking off work for, people -- and I can find perfectly good ways to wreck my own body, thank you very much. Keep those damned germs away.
My boss is one of those annoying people who comes to work even when she's on her deathbed from a cold or the flu. And then she keeps that hacking cough for, like, three months afterwards. I want to tell her, "What could possibly be so important that it can't wait for you to stop being a walking pile of germs?" But what I actually say is, "Get the f*ck outta here, beyotch." Because saying what I want to say would just be rude.
I know I hate being sick as much as I hate other people being sick. If people would wash their hands more it would cut down on a lot of this germy stuff.
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I, too, hate sick people. Even when the sick people in question are my own husband and child. How bitchy is that?
Bring a can of Lysol into meetings and spray those bastards every time they approach you.