Going around

Today I heard my mom talking on the phone. The characteristic “Hmm, Hmm. Ja….ja.” assured me that no-one had died or even been dismembered today. But then I heard “Ja, Its going around” and I almost choked on my Chocos. It was going around. I remember when, as I young lad, I inquired about Sally Singer - the bouncy new girl in my Biology class – I was swiftly cut down. “She gets around”, they told me. “Watch yourself”. Wanting only to borrow her eraser at the time, I was confounded by the warning and used Tipp-ex instead. ‘Getting around’ didn’t sound all that bad to me. Perhaps she had seen the Sphinx in Egypt and gone up the Eiffel tower making her a terrifying traveler. Suddenly the photo of me on Michael Jackson’s knee at Madame Tussauds seemed embarrassing and wanton. At least no one knew then, just how around I’d been.

Now I am equally confused. Whenever I hear ‘Its going around’, I know that people are referring to illness. I remember I first came to the realization when, upon confessing that I had a cold, my friend Ed said “Yes, its going around”. I was stunned at how Ed became privy to such information and so inquired accordingly.

“My doctor told me”, he said. “After he saw my sister’s tummy bug”

I began to panic. I was unsure whether colds and tummy bugs were ‘going around’ simultaneously or whether cold/tummy bug were in fact the same thing, taking me around with them!

I was fascinated to learn how a disease gets ‘around’. I remember when I had the flu. For a while it was just me. But then it started spreading. John and Sarah got sick too. I could say: “I have the flu. It’s going around”

Some people would cringe and one even looked into the air around them for stray germs. Either way, the panic and my concomitant sickliness seemed to earn me more “Feel betters” than the regular flu.

So why did those jocks dismiss poor Sally Singer? It beats me. It seems that going around only brings joy to those who have you.