The Coughing And Sniffing Express

I was on a coach the other day, nestled tightly in a chair and staring wide-eyed out of the window. As the cars went past the coach with ease (including a battered Robin Reliant) I was grateful that it wasn’t chucking it outside and that travelling on a coach isn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be. My new found affection for this form of public transport soon changed.

It started about twenty minutes into the journey. I heard a small squeak behind me and wondered what on earth it could be, surely there weren’t any rodents scurrying along the aisle. The squeaking persisted so to satisfy my curiosity I turned my head around pretending to look for the toilet and caught the glimpse of a petite lady trying with great distress to stifle her sneezing. The person sitting next to her, a thin bespectacled gentleman shuffled a little further away each time she squeaked. I turned back to my seat satisfied that there was no rat around stowing away underneath the seats when I next heard an almighty cough. A great roar making the windows shake ever so slightly by a man sitting in the next aisle brought me out of my thoughts. I sunk a little deeper when moments later I heard another sneeze, this time from the person sitting in front of me. It seemed I was surrounded by people with colds. There must have been germs circulating around me waiting to be hovered up by my snout so they could unleash havoc inside. I had only just recovered from a horrible cold that left me bed bound for days I wasn’t going to let these germs invade and violate me without my permission. There wasn’t much I could do though. No one chooses to be ill and I can’t go and try and reason with a germ. My meagre efforts consisted of turning off the air conditioning contraption above me. It seemed pretty rickety anyhow but I remember reading somewhere at some point in time that most people catch colds from the air con because it recycles the air and gives the germs a rollercoaster of a ride before infecting unsuspecting people snoozing with their mouths open. My other attempt to fortify my body was to flip up my hoodie and pull the strings so it all closed up like a little ET in a Parker jacket. It didn’t bother me that I looked like a freak and that my peripheral vision became nonexistent as the hoodie closed in tighter. I would virtually do anything not to catch that cold again.

The sneezing continued. There were squeaks behind me, roars to my left and the standard sneeze you hear in adverts in front of me. I could hear a few more sneezes further in front close to the driver. The only person in my vicinity who was not sneezing was the lady sitting next to me. She just stole curious glances at me as I stared out of the window again with my hood covering most of my face. I was deep in thought that this coach was nothing more than a conduit for a plethora of germs to infect an unsuspecting city. Each one of these people sneezing would go off on their merry-way infecting their friends, family and strangers. Still what can anyone do other than hide within your attire? Was it a vindicated manoeuvre? Well, the lady sitting next to me started to sniffle just as we pulled in, so I say it was.

In other news, your sex is on fire.