germ warfare

I am sick.
Day 10 now. Coughing like an old car, and head thumping like a new drumset.
And I didn’t do NOTHING to get sick, honest !
What’s happened to my immunity?

Down Memory Lane :
Memory 1 : I lived in a place where they bred cows for the milk next door. I used to spend my time hanging over the cow shed wall – making friends with all the buffalo calves – they are downright cute! All that cowdung and smell ! And I’d be in the middle of all of it, cuddling them up. Come right home, feeling hungry and make up a sandwich WITHOUT washing my hands.
Healthy as a horse ! (Excuse the mixing of metaphors and animals).

Memory 2 :
Playing all day – dashing around in the mud – hot sunny day – buying 2 rupee iced water in hideous colours of parrot green and orange from the roadside (though it was rumoured they made it from the gutter water).
Gastro-enteritis? Not a whisper !

Memory 3 :
Icy-cold Jamshedpur winter. Freeeeeeezing, and on top of it, it was raining. Saw from my verandah, some lil puppies getting drenched and howling on the road. Went running down (umbrella? Nah!) – and carried them all to push them under a culvert –, and wiping the rain streaming down my face -off at the same time.
Unhygienic? Fleas? Rabies? How do you spell all that?

Not fair. Fast forward a coupla decades – and here I am – being good. Using umbrellas in the rain, and hand SANITIZER – and half the preventive pharmacy – and guess what?

Caught some big bad bugs.
My kids cuddling up to me, kissing me all over my germ-infected nose - and still healthy as - horses!

Learning : Guess those guardian angels that they say kids have? That’s really true.