I cough inside my shirt…the first sentence should end not with cats or saxophones but with SHIRT.
You cough in you shirt? goodness but thats odd. The official manner in which to cough/sneeze is on your own shoulder/bicep, as I learned while working at a farmers market(deli stand). Just turn your mouth in so it points in the general direction of your armpit(away from the customer please) and hack away.
And always take off the latex glove before you handle money, and put another one on before you handle food again. (It still bothers me to go to places that handle food and don’t follow these simple procedures.)
I have to go find my Purell right now!
“Consider it a challenge…”
How do you think I feel? I work in a hotel, coming into contact with a hundred people a day (at least). I hate winter, with all the sick travelers handing me their germy Amex cards. Our next uniform better include surgical gloves and masks.
I’m not a fallen angel, I’m a risen demon.
Would somebody please spit in Alphagene’s BLT? This of course is the same man who got his boxers in a bunch over women explaining why they carry hand sanitizer in their purses.
Take a good look at some of our fellow citizens. (Caught ya! you blanched, I saw it!) Well, they handle money, also known as legal tender. I don’t know where their hands have been, but I assume the worst. It’s safer that way.
Anyway, the gurgling coughs and death-gasp inhalation followed by typhoon sneeze things are pretty disgusting. And yeah, “common courtesies” like covering mouth/nose and turning the head while horking out the entire nasal plumbing system are unfortunately uncommon.
But my worst pet peeve are men (and yes, I’ve only seen men do this) who get that look of idiotic concentration, pump up the lungs like an Olympic swimmer and then hronk up a disgusting glob of phlegm that they then spit on the sidewalk.
Gee, thanks for sharing that, guys. Love walking in it and tracking it around on my shoes.
One word: ick.
Veb
You think that’s bad, Veb, what about the bastards who do that indoors? On the bloody stairs even. Wouldn’t that look great on the police report?
“Cause of death was determined to be massive head trauma suffered when the subject slipped in someone’s loogie and fell down a flight of stairs.”
– Sylence
If a bird doesn’t sing, I’ll wait until it sings.
- Tokugawa Ieyasu
Shit, ticks me off too (didn’t read all the posts) but even as a smoker (and a heavy smoker at that) when I am public I cover my mouth.
Shit, if I have my hands full at a store I use the inner elbow to cough in.
How’s that for politness?
Now if I could just quit this nasty habit.
Ike and Sax—I found an ADORABLE Hummel figurine of a cat playing the sax! A must for Alpha’s next birthday. We’ll put it in a purse for him.
As per another spitting thread, I agree—nothing is grosser. I nearly expired from a gross-out attack once when a man spit on the sidewalk and IT SPLASHED ON MY ANKLE. I still feel faint when I think of that.
*Ukulele Ike: That’s right! We saxophonists take the mouthpiece OFF, and SHAKE the spit out of it!
Spit valves. Hmph.
Trombonist.*
Worse than trombones, trumpets, or baritones are French Horns. The blasted things don’t have any spit valves, so you have to wait until enough is built up, remove the slide, and pour all the accumulated spit out.
To top it off, French Horns have two sets of tuning slides, with a thumb valve to switch between them. (One is tuned for F-instrument and the other Bb.) So there’s a total of 5 slide that can fill up with spit.
I would’ve stuck with trumpet, but the French Horn section needed another member, and the 1[sup]st[/sup] chair who asked me to switch was really cute. 
The word is no. I am therefore going anyway.
Let’s see, you cough or sneeze into the open air and you spray germs all around in a large open space. This will let you potentially infect a lot of people, but they will only get a small amount of inoculum. When you cough or sneeze into your hand you concentrate the germs into a small, favorable to life place. Then you meet an old friend and shake hands. If he rubs his nose or eyes before he next washes his hands he will get a large amount of inoculum. So while it is only one person, you are more likely to infect him. Sounds like a tossup to me.
“You can be smart or pleasant. For years I was smart.
I recommend pleasant.”
Elwood P. Dowd
Veb said
Veb, that was actually Omniscient.
“I’ll tell you a secret, baby - maybe you can’t do better - gotta settle for second best” - the Judybats
Here’s a semi-related story from Straight Dope Science Advisory Staff member, Jill.
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcold.html
Here’s mud in yer eye,
UncleBeer
You’re absolutely right, Valerieblaise. Omni started the thread but I was referring to Alphagene’s responses along the lines of women hogging bandwidth itemizing the contents of their purses when the OP was something like, “what the hell do you carry in that?”
Sorry, it was truly lame. Alpha’s interjection just seemed like such a choice moment to twit him back on behalf of all Purell users.
Sigh. Well maybe next time…
Veb
Don’t worry, TVeb.
I always mix up Alphagene and Omniscient, too.
[what the fuck am I DOING? They’re both BIGGER than I am!]
Wouldn’t the police be more concerned with finding out how the stairs got all bloody?
::P:
Live a Lush Life
Da Chef
OK, but make sure you don’t buy me a sphincter. Lexicon’s already promised to buy me one. (I think he’s sweet on me)
How to tell Omni and Alpha apart: point out two lesbians kissing in a bar. I’ll be the drool-free one 
Gypsy: Tom, I don’t get you.
Tom Servo: Nobody does. I’m the wind, baby.
Related: I HATE it when people don’t wash their hands after using the bathroom. It doesn’t take that long, I can see no reason why people wouldn’t do it, and it helps prevent the spread of germs. Oh, and while I’m talking about bathrooms…FLUSH THE DAMN TOILET! Come on, this is even easier than washing your hands. No one wants to see your shit, geez, show some courtesy.
A Freudian slip is when you say one thing and mean your mother.