This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

Welcome to This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, teacher edition.

Why, you ask, can't we have nice things?

BECAUSE WE'RE DEAD FROM THE DISEASES SPRAYED ON US, AND OTHER, LIVING, PEOPLE NOW HAVE OUR NICE THINGS!

Sweet Gummi Mary! A kid brought her absentee slip to my desk this morning. She handed it to me. And while I was signing it, she cupped both her hands over her mouth and hacked and sputtered until I thought some alveoli might shoot out through her fingers and coat my face.

I picked up that absentee slip and handed it back to her. Then the minute her back was turned, I grabbed my own personal Germ-X, blue, with Aloe, and virtually gave myself a Silkwood shower. Clothed, of course. Whatever happened to coughing into your elbow, kids?

During the same class, a questioner approached my desk. I don't mind questioners. In fact, I yearn for them. That's how we learn, you know. But I do begrudge knowledge to close-talkers. We're infringing on my livelihood here. If I catch the crud, I can't be teachin'. Less knowledge to go around. So it's not to anyone's advantage to walk up to me from the side, stand at a 90 degree angle to Mrs. Hillbilly Mom, all the while wheezing like you're on your last lung, sucking that phlegm in and out of your chest, more out than in, so that I'm afraid to take a breath.

Seriously. I could have won a breath-holding contest. Or passed out.

I want a ventilator suit like those evil government doctors in The Stand.