Trying to Reason with Cold and Flu Season

It’s cold and flu season and, at this point in my life, that means more than an advertising slogan for cough syrup or an excuse for my wife not to kiss me.

Sadly, one of the many long lasting side effects of the radiation treatment that saved me from throat cancer is a degraded immune system. The good news is I survived cancer but the bad news is that I have caught pretty much everything else I’ve come in contact with ever since. Over the last few years I’ve caught more bugs than a windshield in the summertime.

This year I was determined to survive the cold and flu season without getting sick. I bought a fist full of vitamins and some magic potion containing zinc, Echinacea and eye-of-newt. OK, maybe it didn’t have eye-of-newt but it had a bizarre combination of weird herbs normally found in a witch’s caldron and the box said it was “guaranteed” to prevent colds. I doubted that but I’ve never seen a witch with a cold, so what the hell, right?

Next I went on an aggressive hand washing campaign. I washed my hands more than a surgeon with OCD. Oh stop it; before you call the Political Correctness Police about that last line you should know that it’s not insensitive for me to say that because some of my best friends are surgeons … some of them are quite fastidious.

The problem was that I have been on a perpetual road trip and have been using public restrooms almost exclusively for almost six weeks now and, yes, that’s every bit as disgusting as it sounds. I’ve used the germ-infested facilities in roadside rest areas in ten states and three time zones and no amount of hand washing can protect you from that.

I did some research on the subject and it turns out that the only places nastier and more disease-ridden than rest area crappers are Miley Cyrus’ tour bus, Charlie Sheen’s hot tub and, of course, the Congressional cloakroom. Traveling the Interstate highway system with a middle-aged bladder is an invitation to catch whatever bug is going around.

To make matters worse, no two public restrooms have the same kind of facilities for washing your hands. There are regular twist type facets, those long sleek ones that you can turn off and on with your forearm, the kind you push down for water, the tricky ones that you lean on and the ever-popular optic sensors that turn on the water when you wave at them.

There are few things more embarrassing than standing in front of a sink waving at it like a moron trying to get some water then having some ten year old kid walk up and lean on the button in front of the sink (clearly marked “push”) and smugly wash his hands. It’s even more frustrating when you realize that the little jerk probably only washed his hands because he had the chance to make a fool out of the old guy standing there making obscene hand gestures at a dry sink.

Even if you manage to break the code on the sink and get your hands washed, you’ll probably have to use one of those worthless wall mounted blow dryer things to almost dry them. You know how those things work; you push the button, rub your hands under them for way too long then wipe your hands on your pants to finish drying them. There’s no way you’ll get sick doing that, right?

Some of you might be wondering why I don’t go to the pharmacy to get one of those free flu shots to avoid getting sick … it’s a valid question. The reason I never get the flu shot is because I just don’t trust them.

I’m no conspiracy theorist but there is something fundamentally wrong with a system that requires us to pay for medications that a doctor says we need but then gives us a shot for an illness that we don’t even have yet for free. It just doesn’t seem right.

Despite my best efforts in nutrition and hygiene I’ve been sick for a few days now. After taking vitamins and washing my hands like a mad man, I ended up getting sick after my sister’s grandson sat on my lap and put his cute little fingers on my face. I fall for that one every time!

You just can’t reason with cold and flu season… my apologies Mr. Buffett.