Germs

There’s only one thing worse than having a cold, and that’s being surrounded by other people who have colds. You can try to avoid it, but sooner or later you just know that the germs are going to get you.

Right now there’s only one person in my office sensible enough to have stayed at home. Two people in close proximity are looking miserable and periodically coughing or blowing their noses. If I need to go to the toilet, my only route takes me straight though a patch of air with a high probability of being a cloud of germs.

Blokes tend to get a bad rep when it comes to being ill. ‘Man flu’ they call it. A woman carries on regardless while a man is completely incapacitated by the sniffles - that’s the stereotype. I don’t think I fit that description though. If I have a cold I don’t really complain much more than the missus does. What I am bad for though, is a complete lack of sympathy. For the past few days I have lived my life in a different room to her as much as it’s physically possible to do so. I want clean air. I do not want a cold.

In retaliation, she taunts me with her germs by telling me she sneezed whilst making one of the two cups of tea, and can’t remember which one she was making at the time. She hides snot-laden tissues under cushions. For fucks sake.

Last night I went to bed much later than her meaning that she was asleep when I got there. She had managed to sprawl immovably acroll the whole matress meaning that it was impossible for me to sleep in a physically separate area of the bed. She was even breathing on my pillow.

Today, I hope to buy some vitamin C. The big 1000mg tablets you get in the long tube that look like they’re meant for horses.

I will not catch this cold.

I will NOT catch this cold.

Add comment November 20th, 2007