I’m a Bad Person

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Clearly I’m a bad person. At the moment my mother has a bad cough. And I can’t help but glare at her when she has one of her incredibly loud retching fits. I just can’t stand it. Despite it being a dry cough, I keep expecting her to bring something up. It’s like living in a TB ward.

And that makes me think that if, God forbid, either one of my parents were ever to develop lung cancer (my mother has been a second-hand smoker to my father’s Peter Styvesant Reds for 35+ years now, and my father’s dad died of lung cancer before I was born), I don’t think I could handle being around them. On so many levels, I wouldn’t be able to take it.

Persistent coughing is really nails-on-chalkboard stuff for me. But actually, thinking about it, I have a similar reaction to the sounds of most body functions. My grandmother’s indigestion-induced burps have me clenching my teeth in irritation. And if I hear, see or smell vomit, the gag reflex is automatic. I just have to get out of there.

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