Yep, it's that time of year again. Coughs and sniffles are in the air.
Take a hop skip and a jump and you've landed in the dreaded FLU ZONE! Dip a
toe over this line and full fledged upper respiratory infections, vomiting
and tails of whoa from down below are gonna get ya. Prevalent body aches and
fevers prevail and when first we cross paths with a poor unsuspecting sap
who took a wrong turn and ended up there and we go running for cover,
Or....to the nearest place we can belly up to the bar to procure a SHOT of
prevention!
If you haven't had it by now you probably know someone who does, has, or
looks suspicious.
I have a few funky things out of order I must admit, but when it comes to
the flu, I never get sick!
Ever said that and then WHAM, next thing you know, you bit the big one? NO?
Well in this neck of the woods 'hon', there exists an ancient belief that if
you dare to utter those words, that's EXACTLY what will befall you and
apparently I'm just about the only one who didn't know it.
"I never get the flu".... Go ahead, I dare you to say it out loud in mixed
company. These folks are serious. apparently those five little words can
kill ya, or possibly cause an outbreak of biblical proportions!
Not possessing a superstitious bone in my body, I consider this belief
system preposterous and any time spent conversing about such matters nothing
more than a complete and utter waist of verbal space.
You know, 'personal' training, if done well, is called "personal" for a
reason. It is an 'in your face' proposition and for the last three weeks I
have been in the danger zone of all things flu related. From Upper
respiratory to bottom's up and everything in-between, including dodging the
recent outbreak in my own home with my husband staying in from work hacking
up a lung while waiting for his fever to break and my oldest daughter
teetering on the brink. SO, I myself have lately announced how amazed I AM
that I NEVER get the flu and I have been SERIOUSLY chastised, triple spat
upon ( oh and that's gonna help keep me from aquiring an airborne illness,
seriously people) and recently upon my proud declaration of dodging this
bullet, I was commanded to put down the weights so I'd be able to
run down the closest thing to a piece of wood I could find and bang on it.
Again, another flu related factoid I'd apparently missed out on until now.
Sounds resonable,BANG ON WOOD, Influenza be gone...Yeah, RIGHT!
Makes me wonder what I'd have to do to avoid a yeast infection..TMI, you
bet... you can carry a superstition WAY TOO FAR! Yet with such apparent
concern for my well being, each year...... ALL my clients try to KILL ME
with it! I Love my clients and how much they value their workouts and the
ones that I, well, STILL TRAIN.. (hint hint), are really good about
canceling or giving me the option of coming into their homes even if they
aren't the one infected but apparently all but one of their 4 children are
home from school racing back and forth to the bathrooms like playing "beat
the INFLUENZA clock". I admit that I usually choose to go. I psych myself
up by reminding myself that (you guessed it) ," Ah, I never get the
flu...i'm going in"! And sure enough ....I never get it!
Now I realize that after having said "THE STATEMENT OF DOOM" about a half
dozen times in this one column alone, you'll all be looking for my picture
in the obituaries tomorrow where no doubt the caption will read, "oddly
enough, it appears that the FLU was her dimise"! Think again. I believe
because of being a professional endurance athlete and the decades of super
clean living, eating and the "super charged cells" that are often produced
by the body as a byproduct of doing so, that I've sort of given myself my
own flu vaccine! Years of just enough exposure and a hyped up immune system
having fought it off for so long and VIOLA...my own internal immunity
vaccine! Hey, it's my story and I'm sticking to it!
Of course, my stoic nature coupled with my need to have folks see things MY
WAY, I felt the devilish need to taunt these superstitious, dare I say
slightly skiddish friends of mine. I hate to admit it but having a little
fun at their expense was a real knee slapper.
Back when I taught Spinning on Fridays, I lived for the ones that hit on the
13th of the month. I was often met with terrified looks, jeers and 'deer
caught in head light stares' as I took it upon myself to freak the freckles
right of the superfluous superstitious class participants who had the
'misfortune?' to stumble in for a quick spin and scurry back home before a
black cat could cross their path. I mean, I feel so strongly about my grass
roots anti-superstition movement that i'm still on the hunt for a scarf,
fashioned in the form of a BLACK CAT. If you find one, buy it-ship it and
send me the bill...it'd make my day. Why? Picture it. Let's say today is
Friday and it just happens to fall on the 13th, but because of that you
are walking around waiting for the sky to fall. I stroll by, stop to say hi
and while you attempt to escape by ducking into the nearest door, I follow
you in and just inside, I pop an umbrella up over our heads!!! Oh, so
Priceless! Yes a bit twisted and SICK..I ADMIT..but come on, if you're like
minded, your laughing!!
While I've yet to find that perfect feline fashioned acoutramont, I do own a
few HUGE UNBRELLAS. YOU GUESSED IT, I know...I'm warped, but also EXTREEMLY
KIND. If I really thought that I could cause a Tsunami of BAD LUCK from
indoor umbrella antics, I'd never have indulged, but alas, it's rubbish...so
here's what I did.
One Friday the 13th Spin class I hide an umbrella in the studio between the
instructor bike and the stereo. At just the right time, maybe we were
sprinting to "it's raining men" (hey cut me some slack, I've been teaching
for over 20 years. Back in the day, that song was a class slayer) I whipped
it out and threw it open over my head! IT WAS GREAT! SERIOUSLY, it was a
stinkin umbrella. Opening it indoors won't trip the trigger to the
apocalypse on any day of the week much less on a random day that just
happens to hit the SUPERSTITION JACK POT of Friday the 13th.
HOWEVER, while I never will believe in superstitious rhetoric, I do believe
that pride comes before a fall and those of you who are staunchly
superstitious will love to know that I GOT MINE!
It's true that I've only had the flu once in the past 15 years...I believe I
got it in the worst way as a pay back for thinking so High and mighty!
Stay tuned....the rest of the story is worth it and I feel the need to let
YOU ALL get ME BACK by telling you what happened!
Until next time...
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