The Summer Cold

     Cold or allergy or whatever it was.  That thing; it appears to be on the wane.  Whatever it was, it put my sinuses into overdrive, gunked up my ears, annoyed my throat and left me with a nasty, rattling cough.  Not a lot of fever but my head felt like it was stuffed full of old, damp washcloths and every thought was a slow slog through that dreamscape underbrush.

     Woke up this morning drawing breath through both nostrils for the first time since Sunday evening.  Almost didn't know what to think about it.

     This comes with the territory in my line of work.  It's the reporters: they get out there, each and every day, covering The News and therefore mingle with The Public.  Unlike the checker at your neighborhood grocery, they rarely have a bottle of hand sanitizer nearby.*  So one -- just one! -- reporter encounters someone with a cold or flu; he or she then goes back to the ol' cubicle farm, only News did away with cubicles nearly a year ago so as to build a collaborative work environment and they all sit cheek-by-jowl and/or elbow -- and even before, they didn't have half-walls between one another.  So they pass it on to another reporter, a couple of producers and a photographer, all of whom visit the break room, and next thing you know, anyone in the building who is susceptible has got it.

     I'm pretty sure Patient Zero of the latest outbreak grabbed a quick snack while I was eating lunch last Friday; in retrospect, her symptoms are only too familiar....

     So, probably not an allergy, then.  Better yet, likely to be just about over.
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* "All Employees Must Wash Mind Before Returning To Work." Ya think?