Everyone is sick and frankly, I’m sick of it. All I hear when I’m out and about is coughing, sneezing, blowing, and snot sucking.  While I want to live inside a bubble for the next couple of months away from all of it, there are places I need to go and things I need to do.  Besides, I’m the one who should be going out and about.  All the sickies should be keeping it to themselves.

I went to a meeting last week. I noticed a co-worker posted up at the head of the table with a stack of tissues, some used and some not, and a box of cough drops. I knew I wasn’t sitting anywhere near her. In fact, I wanted to ask what the hell she was doing at work while sick.  Before I had a chance to she proclaimed she was ‘getting over a cold’ and was ‘not contagious’.  Come on now, you can’t fool me.  ‘Getting over a cold’ and ‘not contagious’ are code for ‘I am sick and I couldn’t miss work so I’m going to pretend everything is fine so that you won’t think badly of me for coming to work and sharing my sickness.’  Too late. I probably thought badly of you before this but now, I really do. You don’t even want to know what I’ll think of you if I get sick because you didn’t keep it to yourself.

Sick people are everywhere. I smelled a sick person at the store the other day. No, I don’t go around sniffing people-I don’t have to.  I can smell mentho-lyptus a mile away.  It’s like a beacon warning me that sickness is in vapor range. I don’t like the smell.  Well, I’m not sure if it’s the actual smell or what the smell means.  It means that I’ve been contaminated. Once that smell is in my nose so are the germs of the person who made the smell.  What the hell did you need so badly that you had to come to the store and share your sickness? If you’re sick, stay home and keep it to yourself.

I have one more important point to make about germs and being a sickie. It’s actually about post-sickie-ness. Once fully recovered, nobody wants to hear about the 72 hours you couldn’t move. Well, I don’t, anyway. A guy at work who rarely speaks, which is why we get along so well, told me every little detail about his flu sickness. I even walked away once and when I returned he picked up right where he left off.  I heard about his fever, appetite, aches, pains, and what he coughed up before turning the corner. Listen, after hearing all that, I wanted to turn the corner…and jump out the window.  I’m sorry you were sick, but nobody wants to the hear the gory details. Just keep it to yourself.

If you need tissues, are using cough drops, and/or emit mentho-lyptus vapors, it means something is up.  Don’t go to work, the store, or anywhere else, including a Miranda Lambert concert. Yes, I smelled you there last night. And when you’re all better, pretend like everything was fine just like you did in the meeting that you came to when you were sick. When it comes to sickness, just do us all a favor and keep it all to yourself.

Thanks for reading and remember, a laugh a day keeps the doctor away! That’s not true but what the heck, just #sharethelaughter !

Eliza G.