Swine Flu

In my current line of work, it's considered a good idea to come in direct contact with as many people as humanly possible in order to establish some sort of "connection," even a quasi-friendship in order to "make a deal." I don't necessarily need to go into direct detail as to what exactly I do since this is what many people attempt to do but most just come off pushy and abrasive. I'm actually pretty good at it. Because of this I have several, "clients," who I must "attend" to.

In addition to that, I would consider myself a semi-hypochondriac... to the point that if I have a weird pain (and by weird I mean something that is not usual like a headache) I basically think that I have cancer or some sort of rare disease and I begin thinking how my life will be day after day dealing with this weird pain.

That being said, I once had a client call me and say, "Sorry I haven't gotten back to you. My sister has the swine flu and I've been taking care of her." The first thing I thought was, "Fuck, I just saw this woman two days ago and if she's been taking care of her sister, then there is a HIGHLY PROBABLE chance I could have the swine flu too!!!"

She then went on to say, "but it's okay because she's no longer contagious so we'll both be at the closing tomorrow."

"Great," I thought as my legs slowly began to wobble. I was already starting to feel the sickness come over me and since I was at the office, I had to attempt to remain calm. I made some jokes about it to others in the office who chuckled at this but inside, I was fixated on the idea of actually getting the swine flu and how dare these women treat this horrid type of flu with such a cavalier attitude! After all that hype on the news, I thought infected persons needed to be quarantined or something. I was actually thinking of calling in the authorities!

The next day at closing I pretended to forget that I knew her sister was basically infected with the swine flu. However, I was extremely angry because I felt as if I was holding in a deep dark secret. If I were to tell everyone else there, would they have felt the same as me? Would they put these women in a separate room and bust out the Lysol disinfectant spray immediately? Of course to my dismay we were all seated in just about the smallest room you could imagine with no windows or any sort of ventilation what so ever. I was certain that this closing could literally be the death of me.

I knew I would have to shake both women's hands because they were my clients for god's sakes and I am basically the nicest person you will ever meet so as I shook her hand, I could feel my legs giving out... I immediately sat down and my head was so clouded with thoughts of swine flu that I think I even started sweating. Then, a cough emerged from the infected but "no longer contagious" sister. I held my breath... so long actually that I almost passed out. I was taking such small and shallow breaths that my face was probably blue.

Luckily it was a quick and easy closing because I think I would have literally died for lack of breathing and proper ventilation. This was worse than giving blood!

I don't really remember much after that, since I think I lost so many brain cells from not breathing. I might as well have huffed glue prior to this closing. The moral of this story is that there is no moral. I hate swine flu and I think it was extremely rude that I was even put in that situation; never again. Next time, I'll send my assistant.

Note to self : get assistant.