Went to the pharmacy today to pickup a prescription and my friends and family would classify me as a true blue (or green) germ phobia somewhat like Howie Mandel.  Checkout Howie has a house behind his house.   I justify it by saying that I am dealing with some serious health issues at the moment and one of my meds is very clear about not being exposed to viruses in order to avoid serious side effects.  I have survived several cancers, heart surgery and a few other issues and seriously want to stick around, I’ve got lots to do.  So, yeah I’m a little uptight about being around sick people. You know the type, the ones that are coughing without covering their mouths, sneezing, and just generally looking yucky.  So on this day I was very annoyed when this mother who was in the pharmacy with a child about seven obviously picking up medicine for this kid that was coughing so hard you could hear the wheeze in her chest, and she’s telling her mom the she can’t get the stuff out of her throat.  So, to say the child was not well would be an understatement.

What was frustrating was this kid was all over the small pharmacy picking up and touching everything.  The candy, the jewelry on the counter, picking up the display items even the back scratches which she grabbed opened up and then put back.  She must have touched every cane and walking stick, pulling them out and putting them back in until she caught her mom’s eye.  To top it off for what ever reason she zoomed in on me.  I tried to avoid her and went to sit in the chairs on the far side and as soon as I sat down, she came to sit beside me, so I moved and walked around the back of store and came back around the front and sat by the blood pressure machine.  Then she came over there, so I got up and went back to the chairs and sure enough here she came again, so I moved again.  In my mind she was like the demon kid from hell, I couldn’t shake.

Finally, their prescription was ready and they left the store and I avoided touching everything but my med package and my wallet.  So, moms with sick kids out there please have a little concern for the other folks coming into the pharmacy and try to restrict your flu and coughing kids from touching all the tempting goodies and passing on their bad germs.  We baby-boomers have a hard time fighting off those nasty bugs and need all the help we can get.