Hocking loogies during a pandemic
For about four years I had an Airbnb in the Mother-In-Law guest quarters attached to our house in Florida. The area has its own entrance, and there’s a locked door between the Airbnb and our main house, so there is no feeling of our privacy being invaded. The guests have been lovely, appreciative and have taken excellent care of the very clean space. However, one long weekend, we had a couple staying in the Airbnb who apparently had fairly serious sinus issues. Unfortunately, we could overhear each of their great, snot-assembling intakes, followed by the cacophany of clams being fired out, presumably into the toilet. They will never know this, but I named them The Hockaloogies. We would just be lifting our dinner forks to our mouths, when one of these nauseating sound effects would stop us in our tracks. I think I lost weight while they were here. This was a few months before Covid, but I wore my homemade version of a HAZMAT suit when I entered the space after they’d left. For various reasons I unlisted the Airbnb this year, so the Hockaloogies won’t be returning.
For as long as I can remember, I have been repulsed by the sights and sounds of people spitting in public. For those of us who have an over-active gag reflex, that particular display is a hair-trigger. It seems like something that should be done only in private.
Yes, even as a child I recognized that spitting in public was disgusting and filthy. I have only seen men do it, although there must be women who do it, too. But none of the men in my family ever spat, in the open air, in front of people, near people, on sidewalks, at home or anywhere else that I ever saw.
Today I talked to my husband, who mercifully is a non-spitter, about people who flob their globs in public now, during the pandemic. Well, he said, in previous pandemics you could get a ticket for doing that. I am pitifully glad to know this. I feel vindicated. I strongly feel that shooting bodily fluids into the atmosphere — especially near other people — should at the very least be a ticketable offense, and certainly now!
According to the Smithsonian Magazine online, in 1896 in New York City, spitting in public indeed became illegal, primarily due to concerns about the spread of tuberculosis. Initially, signs in street cars warned spitters to stop, but apparently this proved insufficient. In 1909 a new Health Commissioner took office and sent out health officers — nicknamed the Sanitary Squad — to arrest any slobber knockers they caught in the act on subway platforms. When that proved insufficently effective, the health department began handing out informational pamphlets on the dangers of spitting. And who pushed the campaign? Women, of course, and probably they, too, had overactive gag reflexes. The Ladies Health Protective Association of New York City, later renamed the Women’s Health Protective Association, was heavily instrumental in spreading the word that sharing your kooties in public areas was hazardous to others. Not to mention uncouth. (I paraphrase.)
Now, in 2020, in New South Wales, public spitting during Covid has given rise to new laws which include serious penalties for those who can’t seem to control their compulsion, in communal areas, to forcibly eject saliva from their pie holes. I think the world should follow suit and severe penalties for expectorating around others should be enforced globally.
Spewing sputum near or at others has also long been considered a gesture of contempt or anger. It’s just plain hostile, like peeing in public or on somebody. Perhaps you can tune these gestures out; I cannot.
When we first moved to Florida, a neighbor came to talk over the fence and introduce himself. We can hear sounds from but cannot see his house, due to the slight distance and lots of trees between us, thankfully. In truth, we already had some reservations about him because on his property, within view of ours, was an abandoned white SUV my husband dubbed, the O.J. Simpson getaway vehicle. Beside it was what had once been a car port, with shredded, old canvas flapping in the breezes. It marred an otherwise lovely view from our yard, which we’d made into a thing of beauty. To block the undesirable sight, we planted an Areca palm there — which has since grown to the size of Jack’s beanstalk — and in due course, the neighbor did have the offending vehicle hauled away and the smoking wreckage of the car port taken down. In the meantime, one day he came to say hello from his back yard to ours. He finished telling me that he hoped to be a good neighbor, then inhaled a long, snorty, sticky pre-hock and shot his snot into the grass. I have avoided him ever since.
Sometimes I entertain the idea of living in blinders and noise-cancelling headphones, so hopelessly sensitive am I. Recently, my husband and I had two workmen at our house. Unaware that I was sitting in my study, one of them suddenly rounded the corner of the house, appearing just outside my window, gave a huge, snorting, phlegm-gathering prelude, and spat a mcdonkie onto the grass. I gagged, thought of Covid, made a mental note to avoid that area of the back yard, and prayed for rain. Mercifully, the rain came, and lots of it.
What’s to be done? If you must unload your sinuses, why can’t you do so into a hankie or carry around some folded paper towels for Heaven’s sake? Weren’t tissues invented so that we, the people, could be spared the hazards of flying phlegm?
If you have a chronic post nasal situation, I sympathize. But if you think innocent bystanders deserve your slobber knocking, I submit that you are a drip.
