Sometimes when I cough people think I’m sneezing. This is a problem for me primarily because what almost always follows those coughs is an insistent “Bless you.” or even a firm and entirely uncalled-for “BLESS YOU!”. Regardless of the intensity level, I don’t very much appreciate being blessed, particularly when the reality of the situation is that I didn’t even sneeze.
Generally speaking, I don’t have a problem with blessings. Anyone and everyone can go around blessing one another to their heart’s content for all I care, just don’t bless me, asshole, okay? Particularly, as I said before when I haven’t even sneezed. After all, what’s a sneeze to a blessing, a blessing to a sneeze? Sure, the old something or other goes that many, many years ago, if you sneezed it was thought you might become physically impaired. Or maybe it was that you would… no, not that.
Ah, yes, I’ve got it! In the old days, you see, if you sneezed, you had a significantly higher chance of being attacked by a pack of bloodthirsty saber tooth tigers, or something of that nature. Like, you’d be expelling an obnoxious boom of air from your mouth one moment and then grounded down to the equivalent of toothpaste for an enormous cat the next.
Okay, you might be saying to yourself, that’s a pretty fair reason to bless a sneezer, right? Nope. Because even in the times of tigers with tusks (or were those just big ass teeth? Saber tooth…saber tooth..we’ll go with tusks), even then it would’ve been a bit presumptuous to think that you, little old you, had the power to call down a blessing from the supreme being(s) up above, don’t you think? I mean, if there is/are such a being(s), are they really in the business of handing down almighty powers to mere humans so that they can bestow on them their neighbors/complete strangers in the event of a mere sneeze or two? I have my doubts.
The main problem with all this, however – this ceremonious blessing of sneezes, this insistence of bothering everyone around you – is that sometimes, when I cough, people think I’m sneezing. Did I mention I have bad allergies?
