peevish mama

I feel like I haven’t written anything in a while, but I have a really good excuse. It is SUPER hard to type and rub hand sanitizer into one’s hands at the same time. It’s harder than walking and chewing gum. Harder than patting your head and rubbing your belly. It’s also treacherous for the computer. Although come to think of it, this thing is seriously nasty and could use a little Purel sponge bath. It would be delicate work, but I think I could do it. Right about now, Doctor Dash is shaking his head and jumping off the kitchen stool to come find me and make sure I’m not really going to attempt this. Had he just kept reading, he’d learn that I have a better idea, one that doesn’t involve q-tips and a steady hand. I think I’ll just put the laptop on a cookie sheet and bake it in the oven for like five minutes at 350˚. That should take care of the germs, right? Sometimes I really surprise myself with my good ideas. I am a problem solver.

Anyway, you’ll have to excuse my writing hiatus while I’ve turned my attention to the world of microbes. For the last few weeks I’ve been feeling like a sitting duck, just waiting to get hit. It has been a total horror show: kids were dropping like flies at school, mothers were barricaded away in their homes feeling miserable, whispers of week-long fevers swirled around in a fetid stew of rumor, and yet we soldiered on. Every day when the kids came home from school I’d make them wash their hands, knowing full well that whatever germs they had encountered during the day had long ago sashayed through their mucus membranes and were mixing margaritas and grilling hot dogs in some corner of their little bodies. Still. Never hurts to wash your hands, unless by hurt you mean turn your hands into the dry wrinkly digits of an eighty year old woman. Their smudgy prints on my iPhone, which used to be nothing more than a small annoyance now portended illness and misery, which I frantically tried to erase with Clorox wipes and a prayer, only to find one of them playing DoodleJump moments later (thanks Chief Big Voice), starting the vicious cycle all over again.

Incidentally, it’s nice to see that the world has caught up with my life long germ-phobia. Such sweet vindication. I love seeing hand sanitizer every where I go. I never pass a bottle without a little squirt of peace of mind. It’s about time people. For the love of God, can I assume you will all stop touching the paper towel dispensers in public restrooms? Use your elbows. Of course this just means elbows are the new armpits, now that all coughing has been redirected to them. You may be wondering if I’m still going to my Saturday night square dancing gig. Not on your life. I’d sooner blow my nose in a dirty kleenex in the street than do si do with someone’s putrid contaminated elbow. Those days are ovah.

My kids were all sick with a fever this week, but it wasn’t THE FEVAH. I suspect it wasn’t the big pig flu because they were done with it after a day or so. Nevertheless my house sounds like a TB ward and I think we’ll have no choice but to just burn it down when they’ve finished spewing germs everywhere. I’m doomed, of course. How can I not be after a few well placed sneezes in my face? What ever happened to the ah ah ah part of the ah-choo, where you have time to move away, or at least close your eyes? Kids these days. Right to the choo, with no warning whatsoever. I’m doomed.

And yet, big pig still looms. There is no rest for the weary and until I can get my hands on that stupid vaccine for everyone, I can’t do much more than wait. And fret. And sanitize.