Just when we thought we had enough on our plates, now we can add swine flu to the mix. Unless you have been actively avoiding the news (which in that case why the hell are you reading me?) you know that the world is on the brink of a pandemic, seems every 5 minutes we are being told of a new case in a new location. Let’s see in the world of six degrees of separation, my old grammar school in Chicago is closed because of a case and just two towns over from me in Maine, there is a reported case.
Its enough to make a sista get crazy and just not leave the house but alas I must work and as part of my job, I seem to shake a lot of hands. Its sort of hard to beg effectively on behalf of a good cause without shaking folks hands. Though maybe if I am lucky we can just do away with the handshake, how about a nod? Sort of like what Black folks tend to do in public when we want to acknowledge one another in certain settings. Instead of saying Hi, I am Black Girl and shaking hands I will just say Hello and hit a nod instead.
Seriously, make no mistake while this sounds serious and scary…of course turning off the telly makes it less scary. On a separate note, maybe we need to go back to the old days when tv shut down after midnight, no news 24/7. See, I am showing my age, the good old days of when you were up at 3 am, there was nothing to watch and that meant nothing, no infomercials, just snow on the screen. Problem with constant news is that it makes things seem worse, after all we lose thousands of folks annually to traditional influenza, the only thing with the swine flu that is concerning me is that it is putting a hurting on people in age groups who traditionally don’t get as sick with traditional flu. Folks in the 20-50 age range.
Anyway to repeat the words of many others, if you are scared before you start trying to buy bootleg antibiotics off the interwebz, and stockpiling on paper masks…use some old fashioned common sense. Wash your fucking hands! I repeat wash your dirty hands and wash often, no where near soap and water, then get some alcohol based sanitizer.
I see a lot of folks in my daily life who practice poor hygiene, look its never ok to piss anywhere and not wash your hands. I know folks who do this and they are not three years old. Look, I know you hate touching the door knob of the public restroom but its not a license to avoid washing your hands. If you peed and wiped, even if you think urine is sterile (yes I know folks who think this) and you “think” you didn’t get any on your hands, fact is you were in contact with your privates and you need to wash your hands.
So eat well, get rest, wash your hands and maybe delay that trip to Mexico and hopefully we will all be fine.
