Friday, May 1, 2009

Soooy Pig, Avoiding the Swine Flu



Journal Entry: Weight = 176.6; Coinage =$.99, 24 pennies (one wheat), 2 nickels, 4 dimes, & 1 quarter; 11 glass bottles retrieved and dumped; ground scores = 5. Significant find, a dime at Walgreens. This once hot money spot had been pitching shut outs for a long time.

Feature Entry: How do we money walkers plan to survive swine flu and still honor our commitment for maintaining fitness and finding coins? Robert Schwartz, MD, and chairman of family medicine at the University of Miami
School of Medicine admits that it is very difficult to protect oneself from catching a virus, especially in waiting rooms, airports, and supermarkets.

We seek and find coins in these places, but most of our work is done outdoors. Are coins and other “ground scores” safe to handle? Yes and no. Swine flu, like all influenzas is spread by the release of microscopic airborne droplets. If the droplets are transported to coins, and the coins touch our hands, and our hands touch our mouths, we are at risk. However, if the droplet dries and is moisture free, the risk is essentially zero. A dry virus is a dead virus.

So what should we do? Dr. Schwartz recommends that money walkers stock up on hand sanitizers, either gels or hand wipes. Then when we handle “scores” we should immediately clean our hands. When possible during our searches, we should wash our hands as often as possible. All the fast food chains have liberal policies concerning their wash rooms. Just walk right in and wash up. And while there look around the dining room, there is nearly always loose change on the floor of these places. This morning, I found a dime on the floor inside the Bean Gallery while Ms. MoneyWalker and I enjoyed "muffin Friday" together.

Also, we should become socially conscious and not cough or sneeze in public. And then we should avoid contact with others who may be sick.

As they use to say on Hill Street Blues, “Be careful out there!”

MoneyWalker

3 comments:

  1. Found 35 pennies this morning in the change bin of a phone booth. Weird find. I will admit that as I picked them out and deposited them in my pocket I wondered if someone had put them there for some sinister reason. Too late, I had already pocketed them.

    A few years ago I walked away from over a dollar that was scattered on a restroom floor. That was hard to do but necessary.

    Stay healthy!

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  2. Weird days are the best, gives flavor to our walks. If we walk long enough and often enough, weird things will happen. What was going on with that person?

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  3. I've been dealing with a lot of feces lately. The morning I closed on my new house the old one's sewer backed up dumping raw sewage into the basement, which I had to spend a day fixing before the renters could move in. Also about three weeks after moving into the new home we had the sewage drain back up there (different plumbers declared it the fault of roots each time). This was a smaller mess, but a mess none the less.

    Also I have a baby. I wasn't ready for the projective feces...

    Jason
    http://changemyretirement.wordpress.com/

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