Since the pandemic, I’ve become super paranoid about coughing in public. It doesn’t matter that years of working as a bartender have trained me like Pavlov’s dog to bury my face in my elbow when I feel the slightest tickle in my throat. Now I’m afraid that any cough, no matter how sanitary, is going to cause heads to swivel and start screeching at me, like I’ve awoken the bodysnatchers.
I’m staying in Culver City for the next few weeks, settling on an apartment in Los Angeles for an upcoming job transfer. Today I was at a coffee shop, typing away on a PowerPoint for work, when I felt the ol’ throat tickle.
I’d forgotten just how dry Southern California is, and my late afternoon latte was not hydrating me the way it should. Not to mention I’d just gotten over a cold. I needed more than just one cough. I needed a cornucopia of coughs. A veritable smorgasbord. A whole Thanksgiving feast of them.
The shop was about to close anyway. So, while the tickle in my throat became a rapidly growing bramble patch, I calmly shut my laptop, placed it gingerly in my backpack, and slid quietly off my stool. As I did, the bramble patch caught fire.
The noise that emanated from my chest was incomprehensible, like being confronted with a visage of the Holy Trinity. It had the resonance of a burp, a hiccup, and a sneeze—embodying none of those sounds and all of them at once. If I had to summon it again, I don’t think I could.
I didn’t stay long enough to see anyone’s reaction. For all I know, nobody cared. All I know is, even as I move back to Los Angeles, a city that can make you very conscious of personal appearances, I will try to remain true to myself, even at the risk of being a hacking gremlin.
Also I’ll try to drink more water.