Learning to appreciate the regular flu

Tom Purcell on Apr 12, 2022

All I can think of as I stand there pumping is how hard I worked the prior few years and how I was able put a nice little buffer in my savings account to prepare for a rainy day.

Now I think of the 1% return my savings account is paying against the 8.4% inflation rate from last month — and the 9.6% rate it is going to be this month — and I realize how much I took for granted the low-low inflation rate we've been enjoying for several decades.

Having your good health taken from you suddenly — but temporarily in my case, thankfully — makes me want to focus my energy on important matters, not trivial ones.

From now on I do not want to waste one fraction of a single second discussing politics on social media, but I do want to spend as much time as possible with my mom and dad as long as we have them to enjoy.

Every time I see them now — and I wasn’t able to do so at all the past week — I ask them a new question about their lives and other family members.

They are a fountain of wisdom and I want to capture as much of their experience and knowledge as I can while they are still able to share it.

And now you know why I recommend the seasonal flu!

Tom Purcell is an author and humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Email him at Tom@TomPurcell.com.