Coughing Up a Room Full of Hate

At almost any given time during the year, you can be sure to hear someone say, "Oh you know, it's cold season". Much like any season other than winter here in Canada, the cold season isn't actually real. There are just always people who are sick. If it's not cold season, it's allergy season. If it's not allergy season, then it's that nasty bug going around.

No matter how hard you try, you will encounter people who are coughing, sneezing, or making that awful sniffing sound that indicates their preference of having mucus constantly dripping down the back of their throat while irritating everyone else around them over simply grabbing a tissue and getting it out of their nose already. This, however, you can deal with. As annoying as it may be at times, you're fairly used to it.

So, you're taking the bus home from school. Or you're standing in the grocery store checkout line. Or you're eating dinner our with the family. And then you hear or see somebody cough. Whatever, you're used to it. But then you notice what they aren't doing. They aren't covering their mouth. This you can't deal with.

You wonder, why on earth is this idiotic and inconsiderate lump of flesh called a human being incapable of performing the simple action of raising their elbow to their face? Why must they instead hack up a lung full of germs, that must be as vile as the person they come from, all over an innocent group of bystanders?

It's so awful that you can almost swear you can see the air leave them and permeate everything, as if it were dyed the most violent shade of gross, slightly green shaded, highlighter yellow. The exact colour of what their likely infected mucus would look like if they ever blew their nose. You can feel the back of your throat tighten slightly as you come close to retching.

Should you become ill, it is likely that you will become in the least, slightly miserable. This will grant you some sympathy. What it will not grant you is a free pass to spew that illness over whomever is fortunate enough not to have contract it also. If you choose to pursue this line of action regardless of every moral code that you must be aware that you are breaking, then anyone around you reserves the right to staunch the cough escaping you with a pillow, and then forcibly smother you with it. 

So please, if you feel the sudden urge to cough, it's okay. Just lift your arm and cover your mouth instead of being the next person on America's Most Wanted.

Thank you kindly!