Red Line, 8:08am. At Alewife station, while the train idles before starting its long journey to Braintree, the man sitting next to me sneezed “Achoo!”
“God bless you!” calls out a fleshy bushy-haired woman across the aisle. Her voice is so emphatic that I glance up from the New York Times to covertly scope her out. She is staring directly at me.
“I don’t know why I bother to say ‘bless you’ anymore,” she says airily, still holding my eyes with hers. “No one ever says ‘thank you.'”
The man who had sneezed, a 30ish man in a business suit, remains silent and slumped in his seat. I do not feel compelled to acknowledge her statement, though I fear she may turn to someone else and say, “I don’t know why I bother to complain about how no one every says ‘thank you’ when I say ‘bless you.’ No one ever says anything.”
I return my attention to my newspaper, only suddenly there was a tickling in my nose. I involuntarily began to inhale. My sinuses have always been highly suggestible, and now they ache for a sneeze. I struggle to circumvent the explosion by placing my finger underneath my nasal cavity, but it is too late.
“Achoo!” I sneeze.
The bushy-haired woman stares at me as she exclaims “Bless you!”
“Um, thanks,” I say softly. To give vigorous thanks may indicate approval of her rude comment. To give no thanks may push her to the brink of rage. Then, my sinuses release an unprecendented successive sneeze: “Achoo!”
Nobody says anything. Perhaps my thanks wasn’t grateful enough to earn a second blessing. Then the bushy-haired woman gave in, and lightly asserts “Bless you!”
“Thanks” I mumble. I would have loved if the original sneezer cried out “Bless you!” but he looks like he just wants to murder us all.
