Plague

Over the last month or so I have been sewing a lot, almost maniacally. Normally I start projects and then get bored and move on to another project before finishing the first. This is how I have a whole craft drawer of half-finished pieces.

But in an effort to both decorate my new place and also to stave off the winter doldrums, I have already completed three project this year, all waiting to be framed and hung in my apartment. Project number four is already in the works and there are about five or six more waiting in the wings.

My most recent completion is this lovely little plague doctor piece which is to hang over my sink in my bathroom.

I am not the one who needs to be reminded to wash my hands. In fact, the skin on my hands is reliably quite dry in the colder months due to my high frequency of hand washing.

This is not a habit born of the pandemic; I have always washed my hands a lot. In first grade when I learned that washing hands kills the germs that make you sick, I washed the skin on my hands raw trying to kill all the pathogens. This was all in an attempt to avoid my greatest fear, a fear that lives on to this day.

You may laugh at the ridiculousness when I tell you that I am horrifically afraid of throwing up, to the level that it counts as a phobia. It is called emetophobia and it is super annoying. It really sucks to be afraid of something that is a bodily function that, if you think about it, can happen at any moment with no warning. I shudder at the thought. And being afraid of something that is quite prevalent in the human experience can really mess with your life.

I have spent most of my life avoiding anything related to even the slightest possibility of throwing up, most significantly exposure to germs. I live in dread of the winter months when the news regularly reports that all the super fun viruses are making their way around, so beware. Nothing makes me arm myself with Lysol wipes faster than hearing that I may have walked past/sat next to/breathed the same air as/talked on the phone with/even just thought about someone who is or was sick. I enter a completely unreasonable state of mind and do everything I know to protect myself from the evil germs.

It came as a shock to me to learn, as we did during the pandemic, that the most effective tools of battle against most germs are soap, water, and taking the time to wash your hands properly. Masks are great and do work with infections spread through respiratory droplets, but the barfing disease is one that spreads through contact with shall we say items contaminated with bodily fluids/substances. For literal decades I have armed myself against that particular virus with hand sanitizer and Lysol wipes (which, yes, I have used on my hands…see above re: unreasonable state of mind) when really the most effective thing would have been soap and water. Not even antibacterial soap! Regular old soap works when combined with warm water and the friction of a good lather. The more you know…

The pandemic certainly helped to educate people to the value of hand washing, but I know now that we’re not in a pandemic anymore there are certainly people who are super gross and do not wash their hands regularly or at all. UGH, how disgusting.

Plus, people are also straight up rude and still go out when they are sick. I get it, sometimes you don’t have a choice. I live alone and don’t have friends close by who are able to run to the store for me. But if I have some kind of plague and am forced to go out, I wear a mask. I go to the store when I know it will be less crowded. And, this is a big one, I don’t touch a bunch of stuff if I’m not going to buy it so I do not share my germs with an innocent bystander. Is it foolproof? Probably not, but at least I try.

People not only share their germs; they love to share their stories of sickness. I find it fascinating that, in my experience, human beings are shy when it comes to admitting that they poop on a regular basis, but when it comes to substances shooting out of both ends of their body, they are more than willing to share all the gruesome details. I cannot fathom why this would be and it really bothers me given my phobia. It’s not polite to tell someone to shut up about their nasty experience because it’s making me uncomfortable. It is also not a conversation that you can just walk away from, because they will find you and tell you later; something about barfing a lot makes people feel like they’ve been through battle and they must share their story for future generations. False. Please keep it to yourself: the germs and the stories.

I will admit, though, that despite the fact that these tales will literally keep me up at night, I listen with a kind of morbid fascination. Every fiber of my being wants to get away from the person telling the story, but at the same time a tiny part of me feels like knowing what happened to them will help me to prevent it from happening to myself.

Don’t tell me that’s crazy logic. I’m aware, but I need this to be true so everybody play along please. Mmmkay, thank you.

I do not understand the desire to chronicle every horrible thing that happens to one’s body when sick. I would want it Eternal Sunshined out of my brain. Humans are weird, it’s just a fact.

What I will say is this: stay home if you’re sick. Give people a warning if you’ve been exposed to sickness. And for the love of all things great and small, wash your fucking hands. I’m telling you now, and the little sign that I made for my bathroom will tell my guests for all eternity until my goddaughter inevitably cleans out my home after my demise and sells it at a garage sale.

I recognize that I will die someday. But it will not be because I didn’t wash my hands.