Swine Flu Confessions

I have tried not to worry about the swine flu.  I mean, worrying is a waste of time, and I don't believe that I'm generally hypochondriacal. . . but the media spends so much time obsessing over this new flu, and, of course have given it the official name, the H1N1 virus.  I pronounce it heinie virus! 

I felt terrible when I heard that Sarah Baidel had gotten whacked by the heinie virus in her first fall as a teacher.  It's unfair, but new teachers often get all the bugs their students have. When you get to be a veteran teacher, you've become immune to most of that stuff.

So now, I'm a veteran retired teacher, so I'm wondering how all my antibodies are doing, and I must make a couple of "swine flu confessions."  Confession #1 comes from church this morning. Instead of thinking holy thoughts, when the plate with the little chunks of communion wafer was passed to me, I wondered if anyone who had been exposed to the heinie virus had mistakenly touched the little chunk I chose.  

Now confession #2 is  a bit more ludicrous.  Yesterday afternoon, I was looking for something to do, so I went to watch Caz play Ilion in football on Chittenango's field.  It was a nice, sunny, really properly autumnal afternoon.  I was sitting in the bleachers, right at the end of the row enjoying the game, when a group of boys and girls from Caz, probably 9th or 10th graders, came swarming up the steps.  There were about 15 of them, and they moved like a fifteen celled creature, sort of happily oozing along in a mass until settling across the aisle from me.  They looked like really nice kids.  Well dressed, clean, happy!  They laughed and talked and pushed each other and told each other to "shut up" and such.  It was the kind of all-American group of teens whose apparent innocence should be a joy to witness.  As I watched the game, I did get a kick out of listening to their happy silliness.  Then one of them sneezed, and the words flashed in my mind.  SWINE FLU!  Was the dread heinie virus right across the aisle.  So, I sort of covertly and slowly slid away from them.  Luckily my row was empty for quite a ways to my left.  I got a nice 10 foot buffer between me and their germs.  Foolish, yes, but hey, a veteran retired teacher has to be careful! And when this whole heinie thing is done, I'll go looking for those kids and. . .share a communion wafer with them.