Get Back, Coughy Cat

While doing my business at the Gas Station Chicken Store on Sunday, another customer came in and stood behind me. Too close for my liking, but I just glanced over my shoulder to see HOW close this cat really was. There are no markings on the floor. This guy was about 3 feet away. It's a small place, quite confining. I wasn't flipping out about it, until he COUGHED! And then I still didn't flip out.

Oh, it was rude. Would have been considered rude last year, before all this VIRUS frenzy. Neither of us wore a mask. There's no current mandate, no sign posted on the door of the Gas Station Chicken Store. About two days out of seven, the clerk wears a mask. Sometimes she pushes it below her chin. Doesn't bother me. We have the plexiglass barrier.

I might have been more flip-out-erish if that guy HAD been wearing a mask, puffing all his accumulated mouth bacteria and nasal bacteria and any dried-out sneezes trapped in the fabric, sending them towards me like so many microscopic projectiles. I didn't rush home to take a shower to get his germs out of my hair, nor throw my town clothes in the wash. I figure I'm going to be just fine. He didn't seem VIRUSy. Not short of breath or wheezy or snotty. More like a smoker's cough. He only did it once. But he could have at least turned his head away from me when he did it! Or coughed into his own elbow.

Anyhoo... the VIRUS has come to Hillmomba. It's escaped the two prisons and the state mental hospital and the parole office and the kid jail and the nursing homes. All places where they test all employees and residents a couple times a week, since that is required at state facilities. No wonder our numbers are so high on POSITIVE CASES. At least they only test 10% of the prison people, and not all 2600 in each facility, now that they've done that already in September.

I mentioned a month or so ago that our neighbor Tommy had the VIRUS. He got sent home from his work at a produce-packing plant. He asked Farmer H to drive him to town, which Farmer H did. No mask on either of them. Farmer H didn't catch it. Tommy said he had a stuffy nose and a fever, but didn't feel real bad. He's been fine for a while now.

The Veteran, Farmer H's second son, called at the end of October, to tell him that HE had the VIRUS. Said his brother-in-law and wife had been over to their house. The BIL was a little sick. The next day, The Veteran said he and his wife and his two young daughters and the wife's older daughter all had diarrhea. The Veteran JUST KNEW they'd all caught the VIRUS. Overnight, apparently. Anyhoo... a couple days later, he went to the ER with breathing trouble. He said they gave him a breathing treatment, told him he had an upper respiratory infection, and sent him home. 

 

He told Farmer H that he had the VIRUS. But I don't know if he was actually tested, if they had the results that soon, or if he might have been confused. I'm not doubting his story. He was sick and breathless. But the wife and three daughters were fine after their diarrhea. I DO know that they pulled their kids out of school before the schools had shut down in March or April. And that the girls told Farmer H, when he offered to take them to Walmart for a toy, "Oh, we aren't allowed to go out." AND even if the whole family only went for a drive, they wore masks. The Veteran is fine now.

My sister's husband the ex-mayor had the VIRUS. They were down in casino town on a Saturday, for a soccer tournament. Back at their hotel, Ex-Mayor took a shower, and noticed that he didn't smell. Heh, heh. Something like soap or shampoo, that he noticed didn't have a fragrance. Sis smelled it. And said it did. Then he was all concerned that he had the VIRUS. They did not go to the next day of the tournament. They drove back in the car together. 

 

Ex-Mayor moved into their camper in the driveway. Monday he got a test, and a day or two later found out he was positive. He counted back the days, and realized that five days before he'd quit smelling, he had worked as a volunteer at their polling place on Tuesday, election day. He'd taken people's IDs and scanned them, and had wiped off tables as they were done voting. He wore his mask the whole time, as did most people voting. He's fine now. Sis had to quarantine four days longer than him, and she never had any symptoms. Sis's daughter had to go to work teaching, but her husband and their little girl quarantined at their own home. Nobody got sick.

Our across-the-road neighbors got the VIRUS. HE caught it at work, from a younger guy who came to work coughing for a couple days. HE told the boss, who made everyone get a test, and that cougher stay home. HE tested positive. He had symptoms and a cough. HE's fine now.

SHE got sick a week or so after HE. Farmer H found out by reading it on Facebook. That SHE was very sick, and being admitted to the hospital. The next day, SHE said she felt better, but that she was still sick. With the VIRUS. And bacterial pneumonia. Here's the thing. I'm pretty sure she wore a mask at work. She's the dog groomer. Of course most business owners want people to feel safe, so make them wear a mask inside their facility. I don't know all the details. I'm just ASSuming! But SHE was the most sick of any of the people we know who had the VIRUS. SHE's okay now.

I'm just curious about how the mask-wearers are getting it, when Farmer H romps all over the countryside, maskless, dealing with a multitude of non-maskers, and has KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK ON WOOD been fine so far.

Which brings me to my suspicion that constant breathing with a mask over your mouth and nose might cause you to inhale bacteria trapped on it. And lead to bacterial pneumonia. Which might be the illness putting others like our dog-groomer neighbor in the hospital. Just a thought...