Do You Have Any Memories Of A Childhood Illness?

In 1984, when I was in the sixth grade, I got the Chicken Pox. Back then, if mothers heard about a child who had the Chicken Pox, they would rush to bring their children over to the afflicted child’s house and expose them to this virus. A child with the Chicken Pox had a kind of weird, twisted, Simon Cowell-esque celebrity back then with other parents: “Oh, pick my child! Expose my child! Infect my child, please!”

So I missed two weeks of school, and when I finally went back I was covered with tiny red scabs, which of course my classmates never noticed, and certainly never used as an excuse to invent rumors of my contracting wacky and exotic diseases. Twelve and thirteen year olds are so sensitive and gracious in that way.

One day I was bored, and I decided to circle each and every scab with a ballpoint pen. That, of course, was the answer I was looking for, as inking up my scabs made them practically invisible to the naked eye (NOT!)

And to cap this all off, I vividly remember that as soon as I had finally recovered, an article appeared in the newspaper describing how researchers had finally discovered a vaccine for the very illness I had just suffered through. Twelve years old is so young to learn about the concept of irony, don’t you think?

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