I Share Something With The Greats.

What do Paul Dunbar, Washington Irving, Samuel Johnson, Franz Kafka, John Keats, D. H. Lawrence, Molière, George Orwell, Alexander Pope, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry David Thoreau, Voltaire, a vast majority of Bronte Sisters, Igor Stravinsky, John Calvin and DJ Scheerer have in common?

If you guessed Tuberculosis, you get nothing!

TB is one of those diseases that you hear about, but seems like a distant fantasy; the plague of days gone by and people unknown. The sickness of those of lower socioeconomic status. What you didn't know is that TB is alive and well. "The Consumption," as I am privileged to now call it, is far from eradicated. Over half a million new cases of drug resistant TB are diagnosed worldwide every year.

I was almost one of them.

Upon arriving--home (oooh!) from my mission I had to get the mandatory TB skin test. This consists of the awesome idea of injecting a strain of the disease into your skin. If your body reacts to the infectious disease sitting in a bubble beneath the first few layers of dermis, it means your body recognizes the disease and you have most likely been exposed to TB.

I got the blob injected me and came back in a week, ready to proceed with life, when the nurse assigned to analyze the test recoiled when I pulled up my sleeve. There is only one way to describe her face during that moment. You know the look your mom gave you the first time you swore at her as a teenager? Not the look right after when she swats you with the fly-swatter, I'm talking about the exact moment the four letters leap from your tongue. The surprise and confusion and horror and disgust all at the same time? The nurse's face was something like that. I felt like I needed to apologize.

Anyway, after shooting some X-rays into my chest, giving me way too much literature and things to sign, solemnly interrogating/consoling me and sufficiently scaring the hell out of me, I was told I had latent TB and that I would most likely die of "The Consumption" sometime before my mid-life crisis. That is, if I didn't go on an intense regimen of antibiotics.

Eventually after making it to Provo, they did a blood test, and found that, no, I didn't have latent "The Consumption" after all. What most likely happened is that I had a false positive on my skin test. I don't know how my skin could have possibly gotten irritated and swollen after they stabbed me with a toxic disease-filled needle. It makes no sense at all.

I was relieved and saddened; knowing that I would live longer but most likely never achieve musical, religious, or literary greatness. So here's to all those great famous persons who've gone before and established the greatest heap of bloody handkerchiefs ever created. I may never write something worth reading, but I now know that if I ever need to get inspired, I'll simply go to sub-Saharan Africa or China and let someone cough in my face.

[Keep following, you might learn something.]

Rainy Day

Weather does strange things to people.

It rained on Monday. I happened to be working. Outside. On Monday. I heard the sky open with an echoing crack and watched the deluge that followed. The water poured off the vestibule, making a hundred-foot wide Costco Wholesale waterfall. And a sea of humanity gathered underneath. 

The huddled masses milled about, supporting their general sense of awe with off-handed comments to their new friends; all united by the common desire to stay dry, the atmosphere was pleasant. 

Until all hell broke loose. 

I think Mother Nature has a switch that turns people's brains off. She must have flipped it. All at once the parking lot was full of cars. It must be an instinctual reaction to go shopping when the weather is the worst -- a sort of hibernation/famine gorging instinct. The affable crowd that had once so peacefully exchanged smalltalk, turned on itself. Friends were suddenly mortal enemies in the jostle for vehicle loading position. Grandpas with two items in their carts looked to be the first because, "we'll be finished the soonest." And Soccer moms with two arms and two carts full waved their husbands into the newly-created loading zone because, "we would be out in the rain longer than the rest of you." 

Now, I wasn't in Vietnam. But I'm sure the war here, spoken and unspoken, raged just as fitfully. Spoken because some elected to justify their wrongdoing with loud logic, and unspoken because some just double parked and loaded their cars with a solemn stern expression, saying not a word to anyone. I was engulfed in horror. Cars piled and parked with no regard to the cones so carefully set in place to keep the peace. Cars and people covered the fire lane like moths. I even saw a grandma punch a baby.  

We've all experienced this. The first day of snow is just as bad. Traffic crawls for no apparent reason. People drive in a manner that seems to say, "what is all this white slippery stuff on the road?" Even the most seasoned, Ice-Road-Truckers-watchin', badass in a huge SUV is scared to turn into an intersection for some reason. Again, Mother Nature flips the switch and people go brain dead. Just you wait for it. 

At some point, my heroic instincts kicked in. I raised my hands and said in my most calm but firm voice, "you aren't allowed to park or load your cars in this area." And there I stood, glorious in my victory. My head held high, I was triumphant.

But no one responded.

So I did the next best thing. Now slightly flustered, I started tipping empty carts over on their handles along the road. As soon as a car moved, I silently wheeled into place and tipped a cart over. Thus sealing off the entrance to the precious dry-zone. I seem to recall wearing an American flag as a cape during my endeavor. This act was much to the distress of the water-droplet-hating clientèle. I soon heard spiteful cries of, "what are you doing?" and, "you can't do that!" and, "listen pal, I pay your wage..." and so on. But the law needed to be upheld. And I withstood the mob to do so. 

[Keep following, I hear there is a new candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.]