Germs!

I can feel the germs starting to close in on me. 

Upon entering church on Saturday night, I just quickly sat at the first empty pew in the back without really noticing my surroundings.  After mass began, I heard a wicked cough directly behind me.  The coughing fits were so loud and hacking that I could almost feel the force from them on the back of my neck.

A little while later, en elderly woman sat beside me and I scooted down the pew to let her in.  The sputtering and spewing began again, and now I could see the woman who was behind me, and I realized why it felt like she was coughing on me---it was because she was.  She stood with her hands folded in prayer and her mouth wide open, hacking up a lung into the open air.  I started praying that she would use her hands instead to cover her mouth!  

I heard a sneeze to my left.  The elderly gentleman took out a tissue which was clearly used many times before and used it to wipe clumsily at his nose.  He sniffled and put the wet tissue back into his pocket. 

I heard another cough and a weeze to my right.  The old woman who had just sat beside me was now breathing so loudly that her air came out in words: heerrrm humm....hheeerm hummm.  The congestion in her chest rattled like a pair of maracas.  Shake shake shake....heeerrm humm  herrrm hummm....shake shake shake.  She was a one man band.

....And that's when I realized that they had me surrounded! I just sat rigid, my back straight as a board, trying to take up as little space as possible.  Maybe if I don't touch anything, then the germs will stay away.  I could feel the bacteria stampeding towards me from all directions though---I couldn't avoid it.

This weekend I actually did wind up getting sick.  No one seems to cover their mouths around here and I knew it was inevitable.  It is the danger of living in a city.  Nothing makes you feel more homesick than being sick.  When your throat is scratchy and your headache is pounding, you start to miss your own bed back home even more.  I made myself a bowl of Lipton soup for dinner which helped both my diseases: real sickness and homesickness.  Thanks for mailing me the soup Mom!