It's Why We Say Gesundheit

I am minding my own business, sitting at Gate 62 in LAX ready to fly back to the east coast. In the morning, I will hit the ground running, as I'm going to be hosting Cheetah Chrome with very special guests The Blackhearts on my program the next day on very little sleep. My mind is jammed with my "to-do" list; my hopes of catching some shuteye on the plane, what records I need to pull and notes I need for my program, what the weather will be like when I get back --and other annoyances. THEN I become absolutely, and completely 100% present to what I see walking past me at Gate 62...

There is a woman walking down the hallway, she's kind of shuffling, and kind of extraordinarily large, but I hadn't taken much notice of her as she progressed past the gates until now. She lets out a sound, the precursor to a sneeze, the aaah aaaah aaaaaaah bit, anticipation of what is coming, and then it comes, and I SEE it. Yes, I saw her sneeze. It was practically solid. Yet it was not a big booger or random piece of spew that flew onto the floor. From where I was sitting and from where she was walking, her backdrop for this photo shoot in my mind, as it were, was a row of windows. Since it was late at night, the windows were dark. A black backdrop, highlighting everything in front of it. What I saw was a misty white megaphone that blew out of this woman's nasal and oral cavities simultaneously and blew MY mind. I have never SEEN a sneeze before!  The brevity of the appearance of the megaphone was so jolting that it actually seemed more like neon or a strobe light. It was there-- then it was NOT! Visual aids, where were the kids who needed to learn about the spread of germs when this happened? I felt like a kid just seeing it; I mean, I had seen all the "sneeze reenactments" on television commercials. I was aware of the statistics of sneezing - ie; it's technically called sternutation, the average sneeze is clocked at 90mph, but SOME studies show that they can jettison to far over 500mph! There was something in the force of this woman's sneeze that reminded me of the sketch "The Autumn Years" from Monty Python's "Meaning of Life" with Terry Jones playing Mr. Creosote, who projectile vomits all over the restaurant staff waiting on him. His vomit "punches" were similar in the violent delivery with which they were made, as was her sneeze - with the force and propulsion of a fire hose. What a delightful occurrence! Something I'd never ever seen before in my life! Imagine that, I've never seen a sneeze. I felt as ifI hadn't lived up until that moment and wanted to examine everything with a magnifying glass. Then I thought about that, and thought better of it. Time to board the flight, I hope I get some sleep. Gesundheit!

Comments

[Keith Eldred]

Nice capturing of the moment.

My Google alerts for "Gesundheit" and "sneeze" brought me here to share how the frequent and spectacular sneezes in my workplace inspired not only awethey inspired me to invent a new way to respond.

When a resounding blast came from a person clear across the room or down the hall, I couldn't very well yell out "God bless you!" or "Gesundheit!" Too awkward. So I started whistling like you might whistle after seeing a hard hit in football, to express "Impressive!"

Then one thing led to another. This became known as the "Gesundheit Whistle," then by the mondegreen of that, "Gazoon High Twizzle," which became the title of a book by a friend, Mandy Green (whose name is a mondegreen of "mondegreen").

Now GazoonHighTwizzle.com features that book and an animation of whistling after a sneeze.

If I'd been in that airport during your sublime experince, I'd have acknowledged it with a Gazoon High Twizzle.

[sneezus christ]

God bless you, Diane Kamikaze.

[Uncle Ash]

viva cheetah!

[Uncle Bob]

In case you are unaware, "seeing the sneeze" is a Sign of the End Times. It marks the beginning of the end.

Viltvodle VI is the home world of the small, blue, fifty-armed Jatravartids, who live in perpetual fear of what they refer to as "The Coming of the Great White Handkerchief." This is their cosmology's version of the end of the Universe, and can be explained by the fact that they believe that the Universe was sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure.

And thanks for mentioning our Goddess Discordia. I always thought there was some discord going on at your station. I'm making my pledge.