Keep Your Hazmat Hands to Yourself

"The main ingredient in hand sanitizer is paranoia."

---Pinterest quote

OK, it's not really paranoia, it's rubbing alcohol. Except if you use the alcohol-free kind, then it's benzalkonium chloride (BZK). Science fact: That nasty puke bug that goes around every year? It's called norovirus and alcohol doesn't kill the germs that cause it. BZK does, and it won't make your hands look like ashy cinderblocks. It's flu season, and I am the farthest thing from a germaphobe there is, but this is war. As of the week ending February 3, 2018, the CDC reports that there have been 63 children who have died from influenza this season and we are only about 11 weeks into it. There are likely at least six more weeks before it abates. If you chose to get a flu shot, OK, fine, but don't think you're inside some kind of magic bubble. The vaccine is, at best, only about 30% effective and that number is probably high.

 

There hasn't been a flu season this bad in years, and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight anytime soon. When my kids were little, I was the anti-sanitizer mom. I never carried sanitizer; I let them sit in the grocery cart without a cutesy germ harness all around them. They played in the mud, and they ate the Cheerio's that fell on the floor well after five seconds had passed. They were all extremely healthy too. My oldest never vomited until he was 6 and never had an ear infection or even a particularly bad cold. If I had little ones now? I would be off the chain with the wipes and the sprays and everything else. I'd probably be dragging around a gallon of Purell and considering hazmat suits.

That's overkill of course, but the other day, in the store, a friend of mine noticed the sample fruit slices, under the culinary version of the Cone of Shame, with the toothpicks next to them. Just as she was thinking of having one, another customer came along, stuck her bare hands under the dome, fished around for a slice, ate it and then stuck her hand BACK in for another go. My friend said she wanted to sound an alarm, like "Biohazard in Aisle 4, can we get the CDC over here to tent the fruit?" I've seen similar behavior, and it never bothered me before, but now, with this flu, I want to shake people and say, "You want a little adenovirus with your free grapes? Sure, go ahead stick your nasty paws in there and root around like a raccoon in a trash can. While you're at it, just sneeze all over the cheese counter, cough on the bakery samples, pick your nose at the check-out and finish up by licking your fingers to separate your cash when you pay."

We are at the epicenter of a wicked cold and flu season people. Just stop. For the love of all that is Holy and good, just think for a second. Do you want to be down for the count with a fever and a gooey cough, huddled in bed, praying for a happy death while your family seals your room off with a boat tarp and duct tape? Of course, you don't. Please, just keep your hands off the free fruit, no double dipping the chips, and if you're even sniffling a little, stay home. Almost anything can be delivered. Want some soup? Call me, I will bring it and leave it at your door, but do not inflict your boogery-business all over the rest of us.

It might sound harsh, and I don't mean to be so….witchy…but think of it as community service. Your neighbors might covet your new car or your spouse, but trust me, they don't want your germs. Right this second, as I'm writing this there are 32 days, 22 hours, 51 minutes and 47 seconds until Spring. Yes, it's just a date on the calendar, and Mother Nature doesn't always cooperate, but soon enough there will be warm days, ocean breezes and sunlight to disinfect this winter of our dysentery…I mean discontent. Keep your hands to yourself and wash them once in a while too. If you do get sick and need something at the store, call me, I'll go for you. I'll walk your dog, pick up your kid and bring you trashy magazines too because people have done that for me and it was a godsend. Be well and if you're not? Be home.  

This Week's Column

Hi! Faithful followers (both of you) here is where I would normally post my Marblehead Reporter column for this week, 2/15/2018  Except somehow the silicon chip inside my head....OK, yes, a senior moment, a brain fart, whatever resulted in me writing a column and yet never actually pushing "SEND" on the email to my ever faithful, ever vigilant editor. 

Rookie mistake, I mean I've only been a writer since I was like, fifteen.  So there is no sage advice this week except to say that...tune in next week to the Marblehead Reporter for the column I intended to publish this week. Irony alert...it's about planning, organization, and to do lists. Because I am a feckin genius with that.

The Lunch Box Hall of Fame

"If your arteries are good, eat more ice cream. If they are bad, drink more red wine. Proceed thusly."

---Sandra Byrd, Bon Appetit

I'm not much for ice cream or red wine, but I like the attitude of this quote. Yes, too much ice cream is terrible for you. Sure, too much wine is a problem as well. Kale is a superfood, we should all eat more kale, right? Well, whatever, but I guarantee if you go on a weekend kale bender, you're going to spend more time worshiping the porcelain overlords than I ever did after a weekend of Jameson and bad behavior. I was younger then though, perhaps I am past those days? No, never mind, I'm so not. 

Still, thinking back to unhealthier times brought back memories of the pitiful food and snacks that I grew up with. Pitiful in nutrition that is, but most of what was in the pantry of my childhood kitchen was delicious. Not a lick of it was homemade either. From a snack perspective, it's a wonder any kid growing up in the 70s is even still alive. Truly there should be a Lunch Box Hall of Fame for some of these creations.

Some of the meals I toted around in my genuine Emergency! lunch box with my TV boyfriend Johnny Gage on the lid would probably make a nutritionist lose her low-fat lunch. The sandwiches were, of course, made with the staple of every home at the time, Wonder bread. It was so spongy you could roll bits of it into little balls and throw them at your friends.  They were like little Super Balls; they'd just bounce off. On the sandwich would be a couple of greasy slices of baloney. I still don't know exactly what's in baloney, but that's OK, it can remain a mystery. Next to the sandwich, was my favorite thing ever, a can of pudding. Yes, a can.  Pudding came in a can, with a razor sharp metal lid you had to pop open. You could slice off a finger on these little treats, but no one ever did. That tiny can full of butterscotch goo was the highlight of my day in third grade. Of course, there had to be chips too. My mother was a bargain hunter so we had the chips in the plain wax paper bags because we bought the big cardboard drum full of some off brand of chips and we'd toss a handful into a bag for lunch. Finally, the matching cold jug of milk, with its screw cap/cup as a top, which always had milk in it. Once a week I was allowed to get school milk, and I'd chose chocolate so I could feel like the richest kid on the block. So, to review, for more years than I can remember lunch consisted of a rusty metal box full of sugar, fat, carbs, and salt. Those were the days, my friend; we thought they'd never end.

I know several moms who still have young children, and when they talk about ideas for snacks or packed lunches, it's all edamame and hummus. Bento boxes filled with pickled bean sprouts, organic bunny crackers (Goldfish are so 1990s), probiotic yogurt and farm share berries. No lukewarm school milk, no way. It's almond Silk something or other and cold jugs full of kombucha and kefir. These are some seriously gourmet lunches, with every carb and gram of protein duly noted.

(#SorryNotSorry but this is ridiculous. This mum needs to be medicated)

Naturally, I tried to do a little better with my own kids. They bought lunch from time to time because pizza day is a big deal now, but there were home-packed lunches a lot too. No more Wonder bread, now it was whole grain. No more cans of pudding, they come in cups now, with a paper lid instead of a deadly weapon. The fruit was practically required, or else the teachers would look at you funny on parent night. Thermos jugs are gone, replaced with BPA free water bottles. Putting chips in your child's lunch might get you shunned at PTO.  Healthy is better, no question, but I think our kids are missing out on some treats that, while horrible, were still staples of a happy childhood.

Twinkies, spray cheese in a can, Pop Tarts and so many other goodies that are gone now, or at least frowned upon. In the early 70s, Apollo rockets were launching all the time; we ate snacks inspired by astronauts, wasn't that enough? Who needs fresh squeezed OJ when there was Tang? Why bother with a ham sandwich when there were "Space Food Sticks." Don't come at me with your green juice smoothie until you've experienced a Carnation Instant breakfast drink in Dutch Cocoa flavor, or, as we call it now, a "protein shake." Yes, the food of my youth was a hot mess of chemicals and preservatives, but now and then, I commit a food crime and have a Little Debbie snack cake, washed down with some Kool-aid. Why not be a kid again, just for one meal? Hold the sprouts, and live a little.  

Quiet and Humble? Not so much....

"The older you get, the quieter you become. Life humbles you so deeply as you age. You realize how much nonsense you've wasted time on."

---Author Unknown

It's a pretty safe bet that at no time during my life if I live to be 150, will the words "humble" or "quiet" be accurate descriptors of me. It's a good thing we get quieter as we age because I remember being five years old and in trouble (again) at school for yapping too much and being bossy. No one was surprised, since a church preschool that claimed to welcome "All of God's Children" sent me packing after three days. The official reason was, "She's just not ready for this environment." The real reason? Gross insubordination.  When it was lunch time, I wanted to color. Recess found me wanting to stay on my mat and nap, because of course, I had spent naptime, arguing over crayons. At snack time, the rebellion was complete when I told Miss Mabel, "I don't like graham crackers, what else you got?" Nobody was amused, least of all my mum, who would have sent me to a workhouse if it meant she got a couple of hours without me.

So yes, it's a good that as we age, we mellow out a little. The nonsense, however, takes a bit longer to go away, honestly. It's more accurate to say that we likely put up with different nonsense as we age than we might have in our younger days. In my first job out of college, in federal law enforcement, the required wardrobe was business suits with big shoulders and crisp blouses. Every Sunday afternoon I set about ironing those starched dress shirts, making sure there was a run-free selection of pantyhose for the week and lint-brushing my tailored suits. I was a suit junkie. I would haunt Filene's clearance racks, Talbot's Annual sale and of course, the Holy Grail,  Lord, and Taylor to score my power suits. The Dior couture wool suit I scored at a Filene's Basement super clearance goes down as my favorite shopping trophy.

Fast forward a few years, and instead of wrangling racketeering investigations and federal labor laws and I'm a stay-at-home mom, and it's considered a dress-up day if  I wear khakis and a T-shirt with no holes or stains. At that point, the nonsense of power suits and endless ironing was gone. Replaced with the nonsense of toddler fashion, preschool pressure, parenting angst, and sandbox social climbing. Friends of mine that were still in the workforce considered my world one of nonsense, what with all the drool and dirty diapers, but honestly, after having kids? Ironing was a long ago habit, never to return.

The days of having little kids have passed in my house, but last year's nonsense could be this year's super important matter. Now it's teen issues, attitude, an entirely different career, and some other issues best not gone into that, all together, have me as far from quiet or humble as I've been since hitting the bricks at the Village Church Preschool in Nahant. I'm getting older, which is excellent, considering the alternative, but come on. Where is my mellow? On television you see these incredibly hip-looking retired people buying a vineyard or painting in an artist's colony, and while retirement isn't happening anytime soon for me, it seems like the quiet and humble part of my life has also been delayed.

While it's nice to have moved on from some people, places, and attitudes that are well left in the Wayback Machine, it hasn't always been moving forward for me. There were definitely times where everything was just going in one big circle, and then there were setbacks too when passing "Go" was just not happening. I think it's rather more about lots of stumbling around, with the hopeful goal of being relatively happy and healthy along the way. We age in a straight line, younger to older, but that isn't how the rest of the world always works. There will be times for silence and humility, but I bet that the minute we think we have it figured out, something else will crop up.