Flu mask provides added perk

When I turned toward the noise it was a big guy in a mask and he didn’t look happy.

Fortunately he didn’t have a knife or gun on him so I queried him as to his identity. When I asked he quickly pulled his mask down like the scene in “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou” where the Soggy Bottom Boys pull down their fake beards. It was my buddy Vance. How did he recognize me in my mask?

The scene played out in the doctors’ office as I was leaving with my flu mask on and he was sitting in the waiting room waiting his turn. I accused him of giving it to me and he said I probably gave it to him.

I’ve lived through lots of outbreaks but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one quite like this one. People everywhere were wearing those silly surgical masks and using hand sanitizers like hand lotion.

I knew I was in trouble when I got there to find out my doctor was out sick himself. A substitute doctor quickly saw me, and the swab turned out positive for the real flu.

I’ve always had a real problem with people telling me they had the flu when I knew full well you don’t get over the real flu in a couple of days. I’m pretty sure I’ve had the real flu a few times in my life but not very many but I believe this was the first time I was ever tested and confirmed to have the bug.

I left and promptly had a fender bender down the street and decided it was time for me to go to the house. I got to stay there for 12 hours before I found myself taking my wife to the emergency room for heart problems.

On my arrival I immediately put the mask back on while they checked out my wife for heart problems. A couple of hours into the episode I realized the elastic ear loops on the mask were about to slice my ears off. Someone pointed out that was because I was wearing a kid’s mask with Disney characters on it. We eventually got transferred to Lubbock where her cardiologist is and I didn’t get out of that dang mask for three days.

If you get this illness I don’t recommend that you stay awake all night in an emergency room then try sleeping on a hospital couch. But if it’s your sweet wife you’ll just do whatever you have to do.

My wife is home and doing better and I made it back to work late this week but I still found myself wanting to lie down on the floor and sleep. The good news is that once they saw me curled up in the corner of my office my coworkers pretty much left me and my germs all to myself.

From now on if I want to be left alone at work I’m just going in wearing a surgical mask.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at: [email protected]