Sick of it?

Well folks, I can honestly report I’ve spent the past week getting into the spirit of the season. The cold and flu season, that is.

Yes, indeed. I’ve been the target of a massive rhinoviral invasion brought on by who-knows-what. Needless to say, there’s no diplomacy in dealing with microbes; from the first sniffle and sand-papered swallow resistance is futile.

I’ll spare you the self-diagnostic litany of symptoms. Enough to say I’ve been ending day after bleary day with a Nyquil nightcap and amassed a heap of used tissue enough to account for the deforestation of a noticeable bit of boreal wilderness. Days have passed in a haze of audiobooks and Benadryl, occasionally rousing myself to attend to social obligations and inescapable commitments before settling back into a relatively comfortable decongestant fog.

And yeah, I’ve spent a fair amount of time feeling sorry for myself – when we’re not feeling our best we all want sympathy and Mom taught me young that if I wanted something done right I sometimes have to do it myself. Then again, I do realize that aside from the hackin’, snortin’, wheezin’, and spewin’ I’m hardly in a position to be pitied … at least not by folks punching a clock and depending on a paycheck.

Not the least of the perks of claiming status as gentrified gentleman of leisure and emeritus everything is a cache of unlimited sick days – each of which pays as well as any day I’m bright-eyed and chipper.

T’wasn’t always so. Many’s the day, like most everyone else, I hauled myself from bed to bathroom to swallow half the contents of the medicine cabinet in a desperate dispirited effort to keep body and mind semi-functional for the duration of another shift. Calling in sick was an option, but only at the risk of coming up short on the insurance, rent, and electric bill, or taking a pass on dinner for the next week or so. A job with paid sick days – and health insurance – was something I hoped I’d have someday, but that day, that week I was going in and, unless they hauled me out feet first, I’d be in for the duration.

Not that that was necessarily a good idea, mind you. I was a festering fountainhead of contagion promiscuously sharing my affliction. Had I not felt so bad already, I might have felt guilty for indiscriminately spreading disease to co-workers, customers and any innocuous passer-by I might encounter in route. I was a public health hazard and I knew it, but the public seemed indifferent to the fact.

And still is. Nearly a third of all American workers have no paid sick days. Of course, odds are the boss is going to be covered, but seven out of 10 low wage workers have to choose between passing on a paycheck or passing on their virus to you and me.

And when you stop to remember that those low-wage occupations include child care workers, folks who care for the old folks and the disabled, as well as four out of five people preparing and serving your breakfast, lunch or dinner at your favorite bar or restaurant it may give you that sort of queasy feeling way down low in your tummy.

I don’t want to spoil your salad, but what do you really think happens when the produce stocker feels the need to sneeze?

What about the cook with “just a touch” of dysentery?

Maybe it’s time we saw to it that not only the boss can afford to stay home sick.