Cold and Flu Season
Apparently, tis’ the season… I feel like that fat kid in 4th grade PE. You know, the one that always seems to be the last guy standing in the middle of the gym floor on a raining school-day. He’s encircled by all the “first pick” kids, as they fondle their big red rubber balls. The fat kid has successfully maneuvered many a primal dodge, with a combination of half hearted leg lifts, frantic twirling and effectively keeping his elbows tucked into his armpits. With beads of sweat falling from his brow, round boy knows it’s only a matter of time before that sound (the unnatural smack of wet air filled rubber bouncing off wet fat filled flesh) rings throughout the gymnasium - announcing his elimination from the game. You see… that’s me. Although I’m not a fat kid and the “first pick” kids are the daily masses that I’m forced to commute with (to and from work) and the dodge-balls are a combination of snot, phlegm, airborne bacteria and influenza that I’m subjected to on mass transit. I know it’s only a matter of time. I feel their sickness oozing its way into my passages.
Just this morning – not 45 minutes ago, I’m sitting on the train (I work in San Francisco and ride a very convenient mass transit system called BART - Bay Area Rapid Transit), and across from me is an elderly man with… god I don’t know, let’s call it Tuberculosis to be safe. His body is attempting to extract a lung through his oral canal by committing a series of violent and damp coughs. His hands, which one would hope was blocking the excrement that comes churning from his mouth, are placed in his coat pockets. I watch as those fellow passengers within his blast radius squirm and contort to avoid being pelted by microscopic dodge balls. We’re all the fat kid this morning.
I figure this is an opportunity to let my antibodies swell. I let my mind drift and pretend to be somewhere else for the next 20 minutes. It’s cold this morning – perhaps I’ll close my eyes and be in the artic. Just remember that you shouldn’t eat the livers of most artic animals as they contain toxic levels of vitamin A.
Ahhh – that’s better.
[As a note: Informally, the word "excrement" has become synonymous with feces; a usage based upon the incorrect belief that feces are a product of excretion. While in fact with mammals, for example, the two major excretory processes are the formation of urine in the kidneys and the formation of carbon dioxide (a human's most abundant metabolic waste) in the lungs. The waste products are eliminated by urination and respiration respectively.]
Just this morning – not 45 minutes ago, I’m sitting on the train (I work in San Francisco and ride a very convenient mass transit system called BART - Bay Area Rapid Transit), and across from me is an elderly man with… god I don’t know, let’s call it Tuberculosis to be safe. His body is attempting to extract a lung through his oral canal by committing a series of violent and damp coughs. His hands, which one would hope was blocking the excrement that comes churning from his mouth, are placed in his coat pockets. I watch as those fellow passengers within his blast radius squirm and contort to avoid being pelted by microscopic dodge balls. We’re all the fat kid this morning.
I figure this is an opportunity to let my antibodies swell. I let my mind drift and pretend to be somewhere else for the next 20 minutes. It’s cold this morning – perhaps I’ll close my eyes and be in the artic. Just remember that you shouldn’t eat the livers of most artic animals as they contain toxic levels of vitamin A.
Ahhh – that’s better.
[As a note: Informally, the word "excrement" has become synonymous with feces; a usage based upon the incorrect belief that feces are a product of excretion. While in fact with mammals, for example, the two major excretory processes are the formation of urine in the kidneys and the formation of carbon dioxide (a human's most abundant metabolic waste) in the lungs. The waste products are eliminated by urination and respiration respectively.]
posted by Survival Cookies at 7:03 AM
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