Fellow Teacher With a Drippy Cold

[GhostLily342]

You guys, seriously. Seriously, you guys.

For the past two weeks I have literally been surrounded by people with sniffly colds (e.g. students, co-workers, parents, etc.), and not once have I even begun to feel under the weather. Sheesh, the least they could do is share...

Anyway, one of the better obs that I've witnessed lately came earlier tonight. I was at another high school for a PD seminar, and was walking around while looking to occupy myself. I soon spotted a teacher from another school who is an old friend of mine. We'll call her "S" for now; she's in her early 30's, about 5'5," with short blonde hair and a lovely nose.

What caught my attention was not just the sight of my friend, but the fact that she had a box of tissues sitting beside her on a couch. She was typing on her phone when I inconspicuously walked up and had a seat on the couch beside her. Upon seeing me, she put her phone down and greeted me. As soon as I got a good look at her face, I figured she must be dealing with a monster of a cold; her face was flushed, her nostrils were bright red, and the stuffiness in her voice was just pathetic (in the endearing sense, of course).

We talked for a few minutes while she sniffled miserably and managed to speak even despite her stuffy nose. A second later, she reached over and pulled a tissue from the box beside her, and gave her nose two soft, yet honking blows. S groaned as she rubbed the tissue under her nose, which was even more red and irritated now.

A few minutes later, she reached for another tissue, and the process repeated: two gentle blows with honks at the end, groan, sniffle, repeat. Shortly after that, she had to leave.

What I found amazing was that, despite the torture her poor nose was submitting her to almost without ceasing, S didn't verbally acknowledge her cold even once. I've had colds while at school functions before (where hiding in a cave like I would prefer is sadly not an option), but nothing as bad as this. If I were in S's position, I'm not sure exactly what I'd do. I might muster the courage to subtly inform those I conversed with that I had a cold, but even then I don't know if I'd have the guts to haul around a box of tissues everywhere. But then, I might just be too shy, and deal with it as discreetly as I could.

What about you all? What would you do if you had a cold that bad, and knew you could not hide it from anyone?

[AnteatersOnParade]

I'm glad you said it; I was waiting for the acknowledgement for sure. If it's my family I really try to keep it on the DL but with others I'll usually acknowledge it to be considerate about not catching my cold and to excuse why I inevitably look kinda crappy haha.