Dear Mom my daughter has the plague

Dear Mom my daughter has the plague

My daughter has the plague. I have finally wrapped my head around the idea. Every fall kids head back to school. They have spent their Summer in different places exposed themselves to different things, their parents have gone on business trips to the four points of the compass. Then on this momentous occasion that we call starting school they all come together to share what they did over the Summer.

“I was coughing and had a sore throat.”
“I had the tummy ache and felt barfy.”
“I had a fever and could not talk for a week.”
“I threw up so much I had to spend a week in the hospital taking intravenous fluids.”

I first became familiar with this concept when my niece Maggie started daycare. At the time I was watching her a lot and I saw just about every day. This insured that whatever she picked up at school was quickly and efficiently passed on to her Uncle Mikey. Yea the schools have this policy, if your kid is sick don’t send him in, if they are running a fever they cannot come to school. Whatever. Everyone knows that every other parent has a job too and if they could stay at home with their kid they would not need a daycare. You drop them off in the morning and you see half the class with runny noses and most of those coughing and hacking and you feel like you are leaving your kid at a science experiment.

This, is not in small part, the reason I was a stay-at-home dad and limited the time I sent Claire to daycare.

Now when Claire gets home from school I tell her to wash her hands. “Why” she asks. “Because you have the plague” I tell her matter of factly. “What is the plague daddy?”

“That is the holy mocus that you are going to pick up at school and bring home and give to your daddy.”

“Why do you want the holy pocus daddy?”

“That is just it darling daughter, I don’t want the holy mocus, that is why everyday when we get back from school we wash our hands.”

“So then you won’t get the holy pocus?”

“No, I will get it anyway, but the hand washing gives me a good feeling, like I am doing something to prevent the plague from spreading and wiping out civilization as we know it.”

“What is sybalsensation.”

“Civilization is the social structure that has advanced so far that we can put a man on the moon but we cannot cure the common cold.”

“That is silly daddy, there is no man on the moon.”

About then she is finished washing her hands and I am looking at the chocolate milk stains on her shirt thinking that maybe we should adopt a change your cloths policy when you get back from school then wash your hands again. No, just jump right into a tub filled with anti-bacterial soap.

While I am contemplating how hot the water must be she climbs up in my lap, grabs my face and kisses me, “I love you daddy, I don’t want you to get the holy pocus.”

It is at that moment that I remember the flu is a virus, there is no way I will ever stop kissing my daughter and it is obviously my destiny to die of the plague.

Love Mike