Ignunt

I watched my grandson sneeze into his elbow, and a word my boyhood mentor, Jaybird, used often came to mind: ignunt — ignorant, in Mississippi Delta vernacular. He would have been dumbfounded by such a stupid, ineffective act. Who in his right mind can be so ignorant as to think that crooking one’s arm and sneezing into it — coating skin and clothing with a slathering of mucous and saliva to be displayed the rest of the day — protects others who might be nearby?

Scientists estimate that sneezes expel approximately 40,000 aerosol droplets. Only one of them containing contagious microbes is sufficient to infect another person, and at best sneezing into an elbow traps ninety percent of what is expelled, meaning at least 4,000 droplets are free to infiltrate the circumambience and be inhaled by nearby hapless souls. Parents who train their children to perform this ridiculous preventive stratagem are more focused on teaching them to protect others before protecting themselves … not a sensible mindset for those desiring longevity. Instead, they should teach their kids to protect themselves first. If sneezing into one’s elbow is a healthful, hygienic habit, will parents also encourage youngsters who think they are about to vomit to open their collars and upchuck down their shirts or blouses, rather than making a mad dash to the restroom?

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In my workplace, ubiquitous posters, showing politically correct wimps shoving their faces into crooked elbows, urge college students to do the same when coughing or sneezing. For that purpose, my mother made her children carry handkerchiefs. And, since many people sneeze into their hands and then touch frequently used objects, such as doorknobs, using handkerchiefs to grasp those objects guards against infection by contact. If my grandson, an indoctrinated elbow sneezer, grabs hold of a doorknob and then rubs a membrane, such as those in his eyes, he may be exposed to whatever contagions someone else left on it. Had he been trained to sneeze into a handkerchief, and to use it to grab hold of frequently touched objects, his exposure to disease-laden microorganisms would be reduced greatly. Like lemmings following the lead lemming to death by drowning in a mad, suicidal dash to the sea, young people, always in a monkey-see-monkey-do mindset, adopt foolish ideas, not only futile disease-preventive ones, but also insane ideas about how to dress. If one guy wears his pants below his buttocks and must walk gap-legged to keep them from falling to his ankles, other guys exclaim how cool he looks and do the same thing. If one girl wears her undergarment hanging out over her dress or pants — looking as if she just used the restroom and jerked up her clothing in haste and perhaps forgot to perform the necessary hygienic ablutions — all girls think her tramp-like appearance is the ultimate fashion statement and do the same thing. People who accept whatever faddish notions come along without questioning their efficacy or practicality are as mindless as lemmings, or as Jaybird would say: Ignunt.