During my lunchtime run, I noticed a couple walking towards me - man and woman, woman pushing stroller. At one point the man looked like he was about to sneeze, whereupon he grabbed the front part of his polo shirt pulling it away from his body, tucked his head down so that his nose and mouth were inside his shirt, and sneezed. He did the same thing a second time as I passed him.
This struck me as quite odd - given the alternatives of covering his mouth with his hand, or simply turning his head. Any thoughts as to why someone would choose to spew inside their shirt?
If you’re going to sneeze and don’t have a handkerchief or tissue, IMHO it’s better to sneeze someplace that’s unlikely to come in contact with others, especially a baby. For example, it’s a little bit more sanitary to sneeze (or cough) into the bend of your elbow than into your unprotected hand. After all, at some point he’s likely to have to pick up the baby, or shake hands with someone. Better if there’s not sneeze juice there at that time.
the thing that got me was we were outside, other than the 3 of them and me, there were no other pedestrians within a couple hundred yards, since the woman and stroller were on one side of him (his left), he could have simply turned to the other side and sneezed to the right and behind himself.
OTOH - his polo was a lime green color, so he may have figured it would hide the boogers.
Which reminds me of an old joke:
How do you make a handkerchief (or shirt) dance?
Put a little boogie in it!
Sneezing into the elbow rather than hand is something my mom’s school (school board?) has been teaching kids for a while now. You don’t always have the opportunity to wash your hand before that next handshake, or using a door handle, or other situation in which germs can be transmitted. As for sneezing into the shirt, well, I think it follows the same sort of logic, and the shirt can act as a bit of a filter.
Reading this thread has made me sneeze. I used Kleenexs, but using my hand, not my elbow
I used to do that when I worked with food. You can’t always run away to do it, so you do what you gotta do. Holding in sneezes is so unfulfilling. And luckily I never had a snotty one surface while at work, so it wasn’t really thst gross. But I was also wearing my work t-shirt which was only worn to work and got washed after every shift.
