Hypochondriaphobia

It’s all Health & Safety’s fault!

My mum-in-law has a bad cold. She’s sneezing and coughing… and touching things! Wherever her hands go they leave blue stains.

On every cup of tea. On the door handles. All over the cat’s fur as she pats him on the head.

At first I think she’s had a bum pen and it’s leaked ink all over her hands. I ask Lucy if she’s not worried about the ink on her favourite blouse.

My wife pops the cap on my pill bottle. Apparently, it’s only me who can see the infection being plastered all over the show.

You see, starting a new job ‘n all (and being just another Third World immigrant) it was necessary for me to watch the standard Health & Safety dvd teaching me how to wash my hands and informing me that things like rubber bands and product packaging should not be cooked along with the veg.

To send the message home, they get some guy to touch a pair of pork chops and then a lettuce head, and then shine a UV light onto all of it to show you where all the germs have spread.

I watched the movie, signed the form, and discussed my favourite bits with colleagues.

I didn’t expect, one week later, to be seeing Smurf-cum everywhere.

I know it’s all in my head. And I know that, to be washing my hands every ten minutes, is maybe a bit OCD and maybe a bit hypochondriacal. But I’m not scared of getting sick as much as I’m afraid of being afraid of getting sick.

In school some of my classmates often accused me of being “hypo-active”. I knew what they meant and never corrected them because, well, I figured I read more books in a year than they probably would their entire lives. The problem with being surrounded by idiots is they don’t know they’re idiots… and they all stick together.

The thing is, I never really did think I was sick. I just hated school so much I’d pretend to be ill to get some time off.

But now, thanks to Health & Safety, there is a part of my brain that IS turning me into a hypochondriac! And if thinking you’re sick all the time is hypochondria, what’s the word for thinking you’re being a hypochondriac?

And if Frankie Roosevelt is right and “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” then I’m more frightened than ever!

And it’s all Health & Safety’s fault.