Elle Vampa

I try to swallow an upcoming coughing fit away, but my aching throat is making it all the more difficult.

The last time I had a coughing fit – and I swear my throat is growing more itchy by the desperate second – was in a full college classroom.

With an annoyed professor, an ocean of fellow students surrounding my middle seat on the middle row, staring at me, wishing I’d stop producing sounds (“Can’t you just quietly choke?”) and no water to save my face or day, humiliation was imminent.

Today, I face the fear of a potential repeat.

Again stuck in the middle of the middle, this time in a conference room, I sneak in a quick cough into my elbow as I scan my surroundings.

A dozen empty cups, two broken ones, one fiddled-with-cup (my boss never misses an opportunity to prove he’s got ADHD), one neglected cup with – ew! – cold hot chocolate, and… has that lady fallen asleep?

I mentally curse my nieces with my next sneaky cough.

What had started as a lovely cupcake-baking-afternoon last weekend, was quickly followed by a moment of utter weakness. Foolish, utter weakness.

“This one is my most beautiful cupcake,” she’d said, “It’s for Auntie Elle.”

And aww, of course I’d melted! And of course I’d eaten it (I mean, hello it’s cake!), boasting about how sweet and attentive my nieces were.

And of course I’d forgotten all about how she’d coughed on them right before we put them in the oven…

And that she’d only just recovered from the flu…

Ugh, I am so stupid.

But hurray, here is the break! Coughing fit prevented, and fluids restored.

Happiness is the only thing that multiplies when you share it, some say. If that is so, germs must lead the happiest of lives…