"Between sneezing and coughing lies....obsession."

The title of this post is a slight modification of the old Calvin Klein advertisement for Obsession perfume. I looooooved that stuff, and back in the days when I was a single girl, a young urban professional, I doused myself in that woodsy-oriental combination so that people's eyes probably watered when I walked by.

Today I have a new obsession. I still love perfume and my favorite one (Coco Mademoiselle) packs an even bigger wallop than the Calvin Klein stuff did. But the scent I'm using the most often is a delightful blending of doctor's office and emergency room with a a subtle hint of ambulance: hand sanitzer.

I've written before that I am he world biggest hypochondriac, right? So with all this stuff that's being trumpeted on the news about the H1N1 virus, you can imagine how that's affected me. I do everything but bathe in hand sanitizer, and I bought a biggish bottle of Germ-X to put in one of the van's cup holders so that the girls and I can all have a squirt as soon as we return from the germy grocery store, library or hair salon. Even church. It's quiet in there, making it ALL THE EASIER to hear people sniffling, sneezing and coughing. I'd like to get one of those big plastic rain hats that elderly ladies wear to keep the people behind me from coughing germs into my hair.

The problem with hand sanitizer is that the alcohol content (a recommended 60% for primo germ-slaying action) dries your hands out. I have the feeling that I may end up at the end of this flu season un-diseased but with hands that look like the hands of something that came out of a tomb at Giza.