STAY HOME if You are sick!!!

So in case you have not figured this out about me. I have a compromised immune system; I have COPD and take great care to keep as healthy as possible... So when I went out shopping last week I got a little upset.

I stopped in at a local store to pick up a few small items. These items were of course located at the very back of the little store. On my way back there I heard someone coughing. You know the kind. Hacking up a lung cough. It made me wonder what the hell she is doing at work why she isn’t home in bed. Why the heck is she working? And has she touched all these items that I wish to purchase?

And now they are all contaminated with who knows what germs. Then she coughed again, a deep chest cough, you know the ones I am talking about. I really need that item and I started thinking... “What is wrong with me?? I am being so paranoid?”

I think well she could not have touched every inch of this so I picked it up quickly and then used my hand sanitizer. Then there she goes again... I can visualize angry, hungry germs flying thru the air looking for a host, a body to cling to and victim whose nose was inviting to a swarm of germs. I am so pathetic.

So I found something else on my list and damn, it is not priced. Over to the coughing lady I go .. I asked her if she knew how much it was and she motioned for me to hand it to her. Opening up for even more germs. She looked it over and handed it back and told me to take it to the cashier to get it scanned for a price check. I go thru the rest of the store and find some bargains and for a moment, I am not thinking of all the germs lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce on me like a vampire, when I hear another person coughing. Oh great, the woman stocking is up at the cashier counter--just my freakin luck. BUT Nooooooooooooooo.... it is not her. It is another employee happily chatting and coughing while she's scanning a woman's purchases who appears to be totally unaffected by the non-stop coughing. I'm trapped with coughing, hacking people in surround sound. Suddenly I have claustrophobia, too, and it's all I can do to keep from running out the door. It's now my turn. Every item in my cart has to be turned over to her to touch. At this point I have to point out to her that she has a nasty cough. Why? I suppose to scold her just a little, and to make myself feel a little better. But it was also a subtle way of telling her to "GO HOME if you're sick! Don't you know you are spreading your disease to all of us out here in shopping Land????" It was raining when I left the store, and I suppose it washed away some of my anxiety--soothed my wrinkled forehead still frowning in disgust. I know, I know. People have to work, and they may not be able to afford missing a day of work. BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT!!!!! People need to understand some of us out here do not like volunteering to roll in a Petri dish of potential Swine Flu!