Transient Transplant

I officially signed on to do some contract work selling t-shirts at various conventions to make some extra spending money as I have expensive hobbies and am the sole funder of said hobbies.  To assist in funding my travel/clothing/socializing habits, I took a once a month, commission-based sales job that sends me to different cities (at least mildly satiating my travel thirst) for different conventions.

In preparation for this job and to gauge how it is going to go, I have my first convention/training this weekend in Seattle.  Therefore, I just finished a 32 hour work week at my “real” job in 3 days, work the new gig Thursday through Sunday, and then go straight into my next 5 day week, all while fighting off the insomnia phase I’ve got going on right now.

Needless to say last weekend when I started to feel sick, I panicked, then loaded up on vegetables, vitamins and Advil.  I’m already a bit of a germaphobe, hand sanitizing to a point where my hands crack open in the wintertime, so it shouldn’t be shocking that I took so much Airborne that my pee turned the neon yellow color of the water after the tablet dissolves in it.

I stand by the decision.  I felt much better by Monday, other than the fact that I’d been made keenly more aware of the germs around me and trying to avoid them.

So when I got on the bus to work and saw a surgical mask roll toward me on the ground like a tumbleweed every time we hit a bump, my brain instantly jumped to the fact that I knew it was Patient Zero and how he a) had dropped his virus ridden mask on the bus putting us all at risk and b) was meandering around the city of Seattle, coughing and touching everything in his contagion ridden stupor and contaminating the city.

I winced as someone stepped on the mask without a second thought, but shook it off and focused on the fact that my neon pee had to have some sort of germ fighting power.  I would only have to pray that it would be enough.

Later in the day, I ventured out with a coworker to get a coffee to fuel myself and fight off the haze from the lack of sleep.  I was explaining the surgical mask conundrum and fell silent as we approached a girl that we watched fall to her knees and start vomiting on the sidewalk.

I looked on in horror.  The right thing to do would be to make sure she was ok.  I shuddered thinking about dealing with whatever illness not only made her spill her cookies in public, but do so to the point where she could no longer support her own weight and fell to her knees when she clearly could have stood and barfed in the bushes like a lady.

We approached her slowly, her face red and eyes watery, she muttered something, which I only assumed was “I’m fine” or “don’t look at me,” got up and crossed the road heading toward our building.  I made my friend slow down, as my plan was to follow as a Good Samaritan in case she got sick or started to pass out post-vom.

My ulterior motive was to see which door she touched and which elevator she got on if she was going into my building so I knew what buttons and handles to avoid as no amount of hand sanitizer could protect me from that plague.

I was relieved when she walked off in a different direction, no longer my responsibility and no longer stressing me out.

I returned to the office, wondering if it was safer than the outside world when I watched someone sneeze.  And when I say watched, I mean I actually saw the spray come out of the mouth.

I gave up.  No place was safe.  I would just have to keep taking vitamins and cramming vegetables until I made it through the stretch.  At the very least I hoped that I had worn myself out enough to the point where I could get some shut eye as well.