Spit Shine

Dad

"Come here. What the hell is that on your face?" my dad boomed. "Xaaaach, spoot!!" That was the sound of my dad pulling together his saliva and then spitting it into his handkerchief. Little Alan was about to get one of my dad's pre-church face cleanings. There was nothing more disgusting that my dad did than the spit in the hanky face cleanings before walking into church. Growing up in the nineteen fifties meant that we did not have pre-moistened face wipes, and even if they were available my dad wouldn't have had any. So if one of us had missed a spot washing up that morning we were subjected to a scrubbing with my dad's nasty, smelly, saliva soaked hanky. Speaking of spreading germs, Mark was watching 'The View' last week, and the ladies were all a-twitter over the swine flu. It seems that the whole world is worried about getting the flu, and many are resorting to face masks, and self-imposed exile from society. There have even been football games played without anyone in the stands for fear of spreading the disease. Mark has already received his regular flu shot, and I had to go through a whole day of listening to him whine about not feeling good as the shot took effect. I hope when he gets his swine flu shot later, that I don't have to listen to him squeal for a whole day. I probably shouldn't say this, but I rarely get sick. I think six years of working in hospitals, and touching equipment that had been touched by every nurse and doctor in the hospital has built up some kind of immunity. Either that, or like mothers milk, all of that spit my dad smeared on my face as a kid acted like a vaccine and has kept me from getting too many illnesses. Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but I think I'd rather get the shot than the spit.