Love in the Time of the Sniffles

I'm not sick. I'm not even hungover. My boss, however, is sick and I don't want to have what he has so I'm playing it safe by not returning his emails. As a result of my proximity to a great deal of nose-blowing and sniffling, I have decided that the next time I am sick, I'm going to be very selfish and competitive about whatever I've come down with. Whenever you run into an ailing friend, co-worker, or arch enemy, you know they are sick because to show how pleased they are to see you, they immediately cough all over you and ask if you've brought any soup with you. Before you can even ask what they are sick with (because you weren't going to in the first place), they inform you that they "have what everyone else has" or "picked up what seems to be going around" (poverty also seems to be going around, is that contagious?). Not me, though, because I value originality, even in my diseases. And in order to make my illness sound more glamorous than your common cold, I'll probably say something like "Oh, this old thing? Picked it up in some third world country. You've probably never heard of it" or "This is a completely new disease. Just released by Apple, and only in Asia so far. They can't even identify it yet." I'm prepared to lose a few friends to keep my individuality.

*Sorry if I misled anyone - no, this post was not about love, not even cryptically, it was just an under-whelmingly clever title.