I’ve had a rough October. I turned the big 4–0, and my family won’t give me time to wallow in a well–deserved midlife crisis. Instead of shopping for a convertible sports car, I’m busy running kids to and from the doctor. I don’t have any imported beer in my freezer, but I do have several bottles of amoxicillin.

My meltdown has been put on hold by the cold and flu season. My only relief is that as sick as I am in the head due to my latest birthday, I have managed to avoid even the slightest case of the sniffles (I’m knocking on wood right now). Meanwhile, my wife and three kids have brought more stuff home than an alley cat.

They can’t help it, because most of their time is spent in the Petri dish known as elementary school. My oldest daughter is in sixth grade. My youngest daughter is in fourth grade. My son is in first grade, and my wife is a second grade teacher. They’d stand a better chance staying healthy licking the counters in some CDC research lab.

Since the start of October, my house has experienced three cases of the flu, two strep throats, bronchitis, and numerous perpetually runny noses. I may not get a Porsche, but I’m pretty sure I saw our family doctor cruising around in a shiny, new 911 the other day. I guess the sickness business is nothing to sneeze at. Of course, if my job involved dodging the expulsions of every snot–nosed little kid in town, then I’d expect to be well paid too.

Those who are supposed to know better than me give the following tidbits of advice to avoid flu and other such things: Contain your cough, wash hands frequently, use hand sanitizer, avoid public facilities, and don’t share items like pens and pencils. I’ve got a better idea – just shut down the schools for a month. That would put a stop to most of it…at least until the schools started back up.

Most little kids are surprised by a cough. By the time their hands reach their mouths, they’ve already coughed on half their classmates. The same goes for sneezes. In some playground cases, they compete to see who can shoot a sneeze the farthest. Hand sanitizer is a nice concept, but it’s tough enough to get my kids to remember their lunches, much less a bottle of hand sanitizer. What is school but one giant communal public facility? They share everything from crayons to crackers. Influenza couldn’t ask for a more hospitable environment.

Maybe I’m just an old fogy (as of October 24, I am officially), but I don’t remember as much of this sickness ravaging the halls of my elementary school. I don’t remember the distinctive smell of Lysol, and we didn’t have hand sanitizer. We did have plenty of vermiculite. The smell of that stuff and the stuff it was spread on the floor to contain was enough to open the most clogged of sinuses. Maybe that’s why we didn’t get sick as much. That little puddle of heaven could kill just about anything floating through the air.

We need to do something, because I’m way overdue for a midlife crisis, and no amount of vermiculite is going to help that.