Gearing down for flu season

I’VE just come back from Ontario, where everybody I met was determined to see me dead.

As a matter of fact, their unprovoked assaults began even before takeoff from YVR. No sooner had I boarded the plane than the random sneezing began, strangers’ mucous bespeckling the air like a novice waitress grinding pepper over the fettucine at Earls.

It always feels like Plague-a-palooza when you board a Canadian jet in the fall, but this year, with the H1N1 doom and gloom, it’s seriously disturbing. It seemed to me that every juicy “Achoo!” came with an imaginary side order of Better Decide Which Song They’ll Play as They Carry in my Casket.

Eventually we took to the air and my paranoia really kicked in. While a nearby passenger wheezed like a dessicated accordion, I began to wonder whether Air Canada had launched a new contest called Survival of the Fittest Economy Passenger. Mightn’t the stewardesses be wiping down the plastic glasses for our drinks with the previous flight’s used napkins? Was that lettuce in my sandwich, or a crumpled handkerchief?

“I’ve gotta stop reading the newspapers,” I muttered as I jotted down my list of preferred pallbearers.

When I finally arrived in Ottawa to see the 82-year-old aunt who was the purpose of my visit, I discovered that she, too, was suddenly feeling poorly. There was a lot of weary sniffling on her part that could only be chased away by wine, which, we agreed, has a sterilizing effect, no matter what the hour.

I’d been frightened of seeing her for fear I’d track in deadly germs. The seniors’ centre in which she now lives had forbidden overnight guests lest they infect its fragile residents. So I almost overdosed on Cold FX and vitamins before I left home and washed my hands a hundred times while there. Then I stayed in a B & B full of clearly contaminated guests from the U.S., New Zealand, and Europe.

Obviously, my precautions were pointless. Everywhere I went, the air was surely a groaning all-you-can-eat buffet of killer bugs. The woman beside me on the train from Ottawa to Toronto sneezed vertically, horizontally, backwards and upside down for five solid hours. The niece with whom I was staying was sore-throaty with a touch of consumption.

The cousin who met me at a café for dinner coughed like Bryan Cranston battling lung cancer on TV’s Breaking Bad. Restaurants in Toronto evidently consider coziness to be a good thing, cramming its diseased masses into fetid, under-lit banquettes. Their overworked proprietors must think fewer people would be a blessing.

On the plane ride home I sat next to a young man who sounded like a refugee from a coal mine as he moistly hacked his way over five provinces and two adjoining seats.

I wanted to spank him (after sanitizing my palm, of course). But by this time I had bought a new outfit that would be good enough for my funeral, so the acceptance phase was heaving into view. After all, I reasoned, I’d had a decent run -- I’d once won a set of steak knives at bingo. I had all the tunes chosen for my service, including my personal theme song, “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll).” I was on the brink of ordering the flowers and calling the caterer.

Anticipating my impending demise and how embarrassing it would be if nobody showed up at the wake, I’d even tried not to pick any fights with my relatives in Central Canada.

“Anyhoo,” I said to myself as another seed cloud of viral phlegm drifted my way, “there’s no point in being negative about H1N1. The vaccine is not available to me at the moment, and there’s almost nothing else that can be done to avoid it. You get what you get.”

So, I thought, why not use this epidemic to my advantage? Is this not the perfect excuse to weasel out of everything?

I conjured up the kind of heavy responsibilities that usually fall my way, like trading in Stanley’s spent vodka bottles for cash before they start blocking the carport. "Hmm," I thought, "I certainly wouldn’t want to infect the recycling venue’s staff with swine flu." Wow. What a load off!

I put this excuse into heavy rotation as soon as I got home. Why wait until you’re genuinely sick to start avoiding responsibilities you never liked to begin with?

“You can’t walk the dog when you’re trying to fend off H1N1,” I reasoned, coughing delicately as our Labrador retriever ran demented circles around the living room with an old sock between her teeth. “Or mail any payments to your creditors. Think of the infection one silly cheque could spread in its travels. Why, Canada’s accountant population could be slashed in half!”

At this point, my 18-year-old daughter strolled into the room. “Would you like some Cold FX?" Petunia asked. "I just took some.”  We think it usually works, even if it is only ginseng and powdered razor blades, or whatever.

“No, thanks, dear. I’m too far gone for that,” I said, one pale arm thrown dramatically over my brow. “Perhaps you could turn on the TV set, tuck me onto the sofa with some blankets, run out and get the current tabloids, make me a cup of soup and a cheese plate featuring hard and runny varieties, and bring me my last will and testament.”

“Oh, mother,” said Petunia, rolling her eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be going to Bart’s parent-teacher interviews?”

At which point Bart, 14, wandered by. “Hey, a guy in my class says even if there is a vaccination available for swine flu, he’s not going to line up for it,” he said.

“Really? Why not?” I asked, blowing my nose flamboyantly.

“He says he wants to be able to impress girls by saying ‘I survived the swine flu,’” said Bart. 

I hadn’t thought of it that way, although I did point out that while this teenager has H1N1, he won’t be able to impress girls, or even see them.

Bart shrugged.

I had to admire his friend’s devil-may-care attitude. We’re all adrift on this scary sea, with life jackets both iffy and in short supply. Will the vaccine help, and come in time? I guess we’ll know by winter’s end. 

In the meantime, we might as well take full advantage.

Comments

[Kristen]

I can't even think where to START to select my favourite of the bon mots crammed into this post. Here are the ones I plan to repeat ad nauseum to all my friends:

"It always feels like Plague-a-palooza when you board a Canadian jet in fall..."

"While a nearby passenger wheezed like a dessicated accordion..."

Bwahahahahah!!!

You're just a SCREAM, Kate!! Love, love, love this. Of course, I've never had the flu, so that may make it even funnier to me.

[angie]

"Why wait until you’re genuinely sick to start avoiding responsibilities you never liked to begin with?"

I love you Kate...thanks for the laughs on a Monday morning..."a refugee from a coal mine" so awesome...