Just when you thought it was safe to eat the cafeteria food …

There are certain things college students would like to be sure of when at school. They want their complementary snack packs freshman year, and senior year they want to pass all their classes.

But most importantly, for as long as they eat in the dorms—excuse me, residence halls—they want people to wash their hands AFTER going to the bathroom and BEFORE handling food.

It seems washing your hands is one of those fundamental reflexes most people are born with. At least, they should be born with it.

There’s a saying: cleanliness is next to godliness. Forget godliness—just aim for being human and civilized.

Those who caught the “winter vomiting virus” were surely a bit distraught to find out what really caused their symptoms. But just as bad as the nature and origin of the illness was the fact that those students were sick at school.

Being sick when away at school is no fun. There’s no excitement and no sense of pulling something over on the folks. However, in the younger years, being ill was an adventure in some way.

For some reason, being ill is a treat in grade school. Children are super-human when it comes to recovering from ills so being sick is no sweat. The day becomes a 24-hour cartoon fest.

In junior high, a person is either sick twice a week or never sick at all. So, being sick—or not being sick—becomes a sort of game. In junior high, you’re either too cool to go to school or too cool to get sick.

In high school, after milling around the joint a few years, you begin to take sick days just for the heck of it. Mom and Dad usually don’t mind if you’re a good student and even if you’re not, the parents just don’t want to listen to you fly off the handle.

But when in college, coming down with even just a simple cold can be a horror. Here in DeKalb this can be even more true because of those arctic blasts sweeping across campus which carry away students from time to time.

When you’re sick at home, it’s true that constant questions from the folks about how you feel can be irksome. It’s not until you’re sick away from home, that you miss the folks doting over you.

At school, you have to get up and go to class. There’s still work to be done. There is absolutely no one who will bring you liquids to drink and food to eat. Basically you’re on your own.

At home, most likely there would be someone to wait on you all day. One can even usher a younger sibling to the kitchen to bring you something.

Of course, when away from home, if you need any item to aid in your recovery, there is not a person to make that trip to the market on your behalf.

And even better than the services one solicits from family members, is the pity one receives. You can tell woe-is-me stories to your heart’s content.

When at school, however, this all changes. No one wants to listen to a college student complaining. It’s a very sad story, and that’s the skinny.