Proper Etiquette When You Have a Cold – again

I first posted this on January 11, 2012 and now seems like a good time to remind people of some ways to prevent the spread of this year’s flu bugs…

Okay, we’ve already discussed my thing about germs, but when you see people walk out of bathrooms without washing their hands, blow or pick their nose in public, stretch their chewing gum with their fingers…and lots of other stuff I won’t mention (but only because I’m too tired to try and remember that other stuff), you tend to want to be careful of what you touch.   Germs are everywhere!

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So yeah, I’m the shopper who makes a beeline for the disinfectant wipes to de-germ the handle on my cart.  The one who opens public doors with some part of her clothing.  The one who goes through about a quart and a half of hand sanitizer every month.  The one who pours half a bottle of Germ-X into an empty Germ-X bottle and fills each one up with alcohol.  I figure it adds more germ-killing power, plus hand sanitizer can be super sticky and this minimizes that problem.

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But, no matter how careful I am, there’s always going to be some butthead person who refuses to cover their mouth when they cough.  I’ve gotten pretty good at cutting off a breath in mid-inhale when someone starts coughing near me in a store and holding it until I’m well past them.

Clearly I did something wrong though.  Because I have a cold.  And I’m a little annoyed.  I have way too much to do to get into the whole zombie thing right now (or ever!). 

So I’m going to share some advice on the proper steps to take for people who are are sick … and don’t know how to cough into their elbow or a tissue.

1.  Using a bright red permanent marker, carefully write the words, “I’M CONTAGIOUS!” on forehead in two inch high letters.  If  bangs are an issue, find a headband to keep hair off the face.  If forehead is not high enough, shave eyebrows to make more room.

2.  Place a surgical mask over mouth and nose.

3.  Locate the headgear for a beekeeper and put that on over the mask.  Make sure the warning on forehead is still clearly visible.

4.  Now grab a roll of Gorilla Glue duct tape and snugly secure the ends of the headgear around neck.  Use of an oxygen tank is optional.  If no headband is available to keep bangs off face, Gorilla Glue duct tape can be substituted for the headband in step number one.

5.  Plan shopping trips for any of the hours between midnight and six a.m.

There.  A few simple steps and I get to shop in a store where I don’t have to worry about carelessly spewed germs invading my air space.

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2 Responses to Proper Etiquette When You Have a Cold – again

  1. love it, Kristy. I work in health care in my day job and this sounds like the process we go through when we get fitted for a ‘mask’ to wear for highly contagious air-borne illnesses. sorry about your cold. get well soon

    • Kristy K. James says:

      Wow. I need to catch up on sleep so time doesn’t go by this fast!

      Sounds like you go through a good process to avoid catching things you don’t want.

      Fortunately, I don’t have a cold. I recycled that blog post from a couple of years ago after reading about how widespread the current flu epidemic is. I just don’t want to catch another one. 🙂

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