Gesundheit!

I have a cold and lately I’ve been sneezing a lot.  I mentioned this to Yduj and added how much I enjoyed sneezing… how satisfying I found it.  Yduj surprised me when she said that she absolutely looooved a good sneeze too; how it was sort of an orgasm of the nose.  I thought about that for a while and realized that she was on to something.  And while it’s true that there’s a lot less romance (usually) leading up to a good sneeze, there are some parallels to an orgasm. A sudden rush, a certain feeling of fulfillment. Of course, a big difference  is that a sneeze often comes out of the blue whereas with an orgasm you kind of know it’s on the horizon…so it really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.  I guess the analogy is a loose one at best.

For some reason, people will offer “God bless you!”s  to perfect strangers whom they hear sneeze in public.  As if all of a sudden they’re living in a small town where everyone knows one another.  I’ve always thought there’s a certain charm in that ersatz warmth and familiarity and I used to participate in it right up until I became an agnostic.  Then, I just found it too awkward to say, “I don’t know for certain if there’s a higher being but in the event there is, God bless you!”  That doesn’t just roll off one’s tongue.  And when I moved on toward being an atheist (this, after having a friend explain that an agnostic is just a spineless atheist) it became even more unsayable. Imagine, “Although I don’t believe any deities exist or that there’s an afterlife, if I had known you back when I did I would have said, God bless you!”  Had I said that, either that stranger would still be running, or more likely, I’d have gotten arrested.

Nowadays when I hear someone sneeze, I’m mute. I know it looks as if I’m being withholding or an asshole, or a withholding asshole, but I don’t “God bless you!” anyone. Not friends, not family, not co-workers…no one.  All part of my larger effort to tell the truth.  Which is even more noble when you consider that I don’t expect that being virtuous is going to lead to any payoff in a great beyond.  Kudos to me!

Obviously, responding to a sneeze with a good old-fashioned, “Gesundheit!” is always a possibility.  Nothing about God in that. I’m not sure when or why Americans adopted a German word for a sentiment (good health) that could just as easily been said in English.  But I’d bet it was before those two World Wars and the Holocaust.  I don’t really think saying ”Gesundheit” is going to be a real option for me.  The truth is, I’m still coming around to the idea of possibly buying a German car.  So I don’t really see myself going around wishing people well in German, for God’s sake!

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