Dear People Who Do Not Cover Their Mouth/Nose When They Sneeze and Cough,

Being around you makes me wish that Hazmat Suits were in fashion. Maybe that way I could evade the germs you are spewing every which way whenever you wheeze. If you are sick, that is not a problem. What is a problem is the way you are expressing your ailment. Contrary to popular belief, elbows actually do have a purpose besides being a base for funnybones and the connector of the upper and lower arm. Elbows are shields for the germs that escape your body. Please don’t let them get further than your sleeve.

Many years ago, I had the pleasure of watching the film “Why Don’t We Do It In Our Sleeves?”, which is a five-minute documentary about how to sneeze into your sleeve. I watched this as part of a job training, but I highly recommend it for everyone who struggles with keeping their germs contained. In “Why Don’t We Do It In Our Sleeves?”, people demonstrate the appropriate and inappropriate ways to sneeze and cough, which I will explain for you now. Clearly, you need to be enlightened.

If you are sneezing into your hands, you’re doing it wrong. Those germs will go right onto that doorknob, that chair, that railing, and infect the millions. How do you think the Black Plague spread? If only those rats had sneezed into their fur, we would not have had a problem. Yet, here we are.

If you are wearing short sleeves, sneeze or cough into your shoulder (this is a pro tip). If your germs get on your bare skin, that’s gross. And, it will slide right off and spread.

If all of this is such a huge problem for you, then you should walk around with tissues or a handkerchief of something old-fashioned like that.

I actually am running out of things to say because it should just be so easy for you to contain your germs. And I don’t want to spend a million dollars on a Hazmat Suit. So get it together. And feel better soon.

Best Regards,

Halle Newman