By Aaron J. Brown
Published March 9, 2008 in the Hibbing Daily Tribune
Small
germs, big impact
By Aaron J. BrownGerms marched through our house like Sherman to the sea. They hit baby George first. We thought the germs could be isolated in one tot, but we live in a house with three boys under age three. Every flat surface or physical object is moist almost all of the time.
So the germs freely passed between us, first to George’s twin brother Doug, then to their older brother Henry, then to Christina. For about 24 hours, lethargic, diseased children littered the house. Metal bowls were situated all around for purposes I need not describe.
Through all this – the crying, the retching, the crying, “get the bowl,” “get more jammies,” and “we need to run the wash, now” – I remained alarmingly healthy. I was like the guy who thinks he may have been bitten by a zombie, but has not yet begun to crave human brains.
Naturally, I had business in Duluth the next day, which is a full two hours drive from my home, itself located a half hour away from nearly every Iron Range town west of Chisholm. (Our place is a little like the island on “Lost”). I drove down feeling fine, drinking coffee and quietly enjoying my escape from Germ Valley. My morning engagement went fine, but by the time I sat down for my afternoon meeting I was experiencing biological foreshadowing, early symptoms previewing “the sickness.”
In horror movies this where the wily old small town mayor says, “Reckon I see a light on at the old Hadley place. Haven’t seen that since the incident. Wouldn’t worry, though, since the only folks in town tonight are those promiscuous teenagers staying at the old ax factory.”
The drive back north was getting rough by the
time I was
back on the Range. At one point, I felt so sick I had to pull over to
the side
of the road so that I could swoon and look pale without endangering the
lives
of other drivers. My pale swooning was all going to plan, until a
highway
patrolman gave a loud knock at my driver’s side window.
“Are you sick or drunk?” he asked.
For a moment, I wished I was drunk. Because if
I was
drunk, the officer would have brought me to a nice square room with a
bed and
no food anywhere in sight. But alas, it was 3 in the afternoon; I was
stone-cold sober but still sick as a dog. The officer was very
sympathetic and
let me go without any hassle. (It was the first time I was ever stopped
by law
enforcement for being pulled over). I got home alright, only to later
join the
family parade of viral maladies.
It’s been a couple weeks now, and I feel fine. The kids are bright eyed and keep their partially digested food on the inside. But I will never again underestimate the mighty power of microscopic germs in a home with tiny people incapable of blowing their own noses.