The Plague

My wife, Cheryl, once retired, decided after a period of time that she would like to have extra spending money. Though there were other options for jobs, we would notice that every time we drove into town there would be a school bus parked on the lawn of the middle school with a banner hung on its side saying, School Bus Drivers Needed, Will Train.

“Other ladies my age are bus drivers. I want to try that,” she decided. So, for many years she drove a school bus. Then she became a bus route manager, planning routes and making sure every bus had a driver. Becoming fed up with school politics, she retired again, only to rehire with a better district — once again, as a school bus driver.

I tell you this to help you understand why the plague is always in our house.

Oh, it’s not just bus drivers. My teacher friends, Nate and Melissa, and all school employees have the plague too. Don’t think of the children in our schools as humans. Think of them as germs. Staring down the hallway at the swarming students between classes is the same thing as looking at a petri dish of bacteria through the lens of a microscope.

Even though it would be appropriate for school staff to wear Tyvek disposable body coverings and full-face respirators, the school boards frown on it saying it cuts down on interaction and can scare the children.

It is no surprise then that school staff, and the families of school staff are always sick. When Cheryl pulls up to the school in front of the lines of children being watched closely by their runny nosed, coughing teachers, she first sprays the air with aerosol crud killer before opening the door. Flowing onto the bus, like chemical biohazard, the kindergarten through 5th graders hand her pictures or cookies. The 6th through 12th graders just cough and grunt as they climb aboard, earbuds screaming into their brains. All hands touch the seat backs and windows leaving germs for the next person. Cheryl says that as sixty kids climb on the bus in the morning, their noses are flowing freely. No one carries Kleenex or handkerchiefs anymore.  After the bus is empty, the center aisle appears to have slug trails the full length.

I have suggested that bus maintenance attach signs to the rear of the school buses stating, “It is illegal to pass this hazardous waste container when the lights are flashing.”

And so, with a one week break between colds, Cheryl jumps into another one. This starts in September and goes through May. I, within one week of her bringing it home, I have it too. I mean, how many varieties of the cold virus could there possibly be?

This latest variety is a doozy. It goes deep into the lungs and refuses to leave. This in turn causes a four octave lower voice which suits me fine, but not so much Cheryl who used to sing soprano for me.

The other day she was talking to a customer service agent on the telephone to get an order refunded . . .

“Hello, this is Cheryl Mitchell.”

“Thank you for calling today, Charles, how may I help you?”

“My name is Cheryl. I’m a woman.”

“Oh.”

With this same chest cold, I have experienced something unique from the rest — a sound like air blowing through reeds when I exhale the last ⅓ of the air from my lungs. Cheryl has a sound too. Now the first ⅔ of the exhaled air is quiet, but going into the last third, I hear a “heee” sound. Cheryl on the other hand has a “haaa” sound. I have tried only exhaling the first 2/3s of my lung volume and inhaling again to avoid the “heee”, but this involves changing a lifetime habit of exhaling completely and my mind refuses to cooperate.

During the day, when I’m upright, I don’t notice the noise at all, but boy, when we go to bed at night, I hear “heee, haaa, heee, haaa” and it’s impossible to sleep.

The dog, who is not allowed in the bedroom, cannot figure out what the sounds are from the other side of the closed door which worries him, so he lies in the hall outside our door and whines, falling in line with the wheezes: “heee, haaa, aaar, heee, haaa, aaar.” I can’t sleep anyway, and I could yell at the dog to “shut up!” But in all fairness, he could yell the same thing at us.

Lastly, is the issue with cold sores from over blowing our noses. If you have never had a cold sore, it is caused by the herpes simplex virus. That name alone makes people think unfair thoughts of how you got it. You can feel it coming with the slight itch. Then the itch turns into a red mark, which turns into a full-blown blister which is a real attention getter. I’ve had mothers pick up their children and cover their eyes if I pass too closely in a store aisle.

As I lay here in bed writing this piece, I realize that there are still four more months of school left. With a simple equation of two weeks sick, one healthy, two weeks sick again, I will have the cold, flu or Covid, six more times before summer school vacation starts.

“Heee, haaa, aaar. Heee, haaa, aaar.”

“Arvin, go back to your bed!”

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