New flu germs are here again
My wife came home from school and let out an explosive sneeze — and I could imagine the flu germs shooting straight towards me through the air.
“Cover your mou...”, I shouted, but it was too late. She had lifted up her arms to warn me that she couldn’t cover her mouth as she was carrying loads of notebooks.
If I had a slow- motion camera with extremely high magnification, I would have seen the flu viruses bouncing off the wall and heading towards me, like in the horror movies. I had read somewhere that the viruses travel in the mucus globules at a speed of a bullet.
There was only one thing to do, so I went to the bathroom and washed my hands. The best thing to do this season is to practice good hygiene and wash your hands often, a doctor had advised
“The elderly and the young are particularly vulnerable,” the doctor had said, advising that I take a flu shot just before winter. And that put my back up. “Who you calling elderly?” I told myself, speaking, like a New York gangster.
These bugs are cunning; they adapt very easily and every year change their DNA, or whatever, and we are helpless against the new species. “The vaccine will cover you about 80 per cent,” the doctor said.
‘ Need more tissues’
The takeover of the body by the bugs progressed very fast. First, a tickling in the throat, then water starts draining out of the nose and you have to run across the room for the tissue box. “Dad, we need more tissues,” said my son, holding a toilet roll. I told him to use the roll for some time as it is advertised as ‘ baby bottom soft’ and will not rub the skin off the nose with the constant honking.
Friends started giving advice on how best to beat the cold. “Warm water, honey, lime juice and squashed ginger,” said one. Drink it the first thing in the morning.” My wife said orange juice would help, so we went into the corner grocery and sneezed in the vegetable and fruits bin.
The guy who weighs the fruits looked at us cautiously and slowly pulled two small plastic bags on his hands to protect them. “Don’t eat bananas,” he told my wife solicitously. “Who is he”? I asked her sarcastically. “An Ayurvedic doctor doing a second job?”
“Chicken soup,” said another friend. We had bought an expensive soup maker, but it was shoved un- der the sink with the bleach and fabric softener that smelled like a baby. I pulled it out and checked the cabinets and found that we didn’t have chicken stock. “Use vegetable stock,” said my wife.
“Is this chicken European?” I asked my wife. She said she does not check the origins of the poultry and then realised why I was asking as bird flu was again raising its head in Europe.
“Drink plenty of fluids,” said my wife chasing me out of the kitchen. “You can’t drown these things,” I said as all systems inside me were going haywire.
“You should go out and sit in the sunlight. It will kill the germs and you can make Vitamin D,” said a friend.
Mahmood Saberi is a freelance journalist based in Dubai.