Killers in Kilts and Tutu's

Some days back was -- I think it was designated -- Special Victims Day at our youngest grandchild's Nursery School. Invitations were pretty and sent out weeks before, explaining how important we Older Adults were in the lives of our grandchildren -- indeed, how special. How sweet! The teachers and administrations were asking a bunch of older folks if they wouldn't like to spend the morning with a bunch of adorable 3-5 year old nose pickers who would lovingly offer up their bacterias and viruses via a method of effusive hugging ... usually, with charge.

At this particular event, once we arrived at the school, we were and, indeed, each grandparent in turn would be targeted for the weaponized versions of some of the nastiest diseases known to mankind. Direct from the stockpiles of all the bellicose nations of the world, I suspect, botulisms and pneumonias and Streps and killer flus are mixed together in a lethal oleo and slathered on the clothing of these little Typhoid Mary's and Max's who are then loaded into midevel catapults from which these little rockets are propelled into the arms of the unsuspecting Last Quarter Players as they enter the MZ (Militarized Zone) .... a place which is loaded up with surfaces and innocent looking armaments made by Lego and Crayola ... especially for the occasion.

Everyday difficulties -- such as finding it tough to stay asleep for a decent amount of time -- will, within days, be augmented -- "for your sleeping pleasure, Grandma and Grandpa", with the kind of upper respiratory hacking that drives the sinus block of the heart into a panicky arrhythmia and the lungs into spasm. I am in no condition to pretend like I was ready for the Center for Disease Control epidemiology clusters in plotting the trajectory of my or other such diseases, but it seems likely -- and just perhaps a blessing -- that death typically follows within days. Truth be told, I don't recall from previous Special Victims Days with our older grandchildren if the fallen are buried in individual private interment ceremonies or if my Comrades were buried in a Mass Grave.

I'm certain that comely invitations will follow.

(If I, perchance, am among the survivors, I will provide details on the progression of this disease and its accompanying delirium as soon as I'm discharged from the Infectious Disease Floor of our local teaching hospital and seen fit to rejoin the general population. My Physician indicated that it was too late for immunization which must be done via sterilization of one's children at birth to prevent the growth of spawn-carrying spawn. Too late, I suppose, to sterilize my 47 yo child, ayah?)

Ha-chewww!