Socially Unacceptable Sneezes

So I’m staying at my grandma’s house while my parents are away on their third honeymoon...

Anyways I found this rubix cube in the cupboard and I was like ah, my friend was trying to teach me how to do this the other week! I’ll give this a go! It’s friggin hard. It is so hard. I didn’t think about how hard it would be when I picked it up. I picked this up at around half of eleven, and I still haven’t done it, I’m so close though.. I’m just so scared of doing any more to it in case I screw something up again, because I’ve come this close about 3 times and in the last moves that it shows on the internet I’ve screwed it up. But I’m seeing my friend how knows how to do it tomorrow and I’m going to just had it to him and be like, ‘please help me?’ Never, ever try to do a rubix cube unless you have about a good 6 hours to do it because I am definitely never doing that again. Ever.

So I was on break the other day at work, and there is a considerable limit of space in the restaurant so I had to sit opposite of this woman, and I don’t want to judge but she gave me the dirtiest look I have ever seen. It was a real, who do you think you are to sit in my presence kind of look, and I’m going to be honest it made me dislike her a little bit. But then she did something that I couldn’t forgive her for. She sneezed.

Now usually when people sneeze I’m the first to say bless you. Even if I don’t know who it is because they’re not by me I will still say bless you because I find it quite amusing that this person will just hear this voice and not know where it came from. Usually me saying bless you is met with a really weird look, and or an awkward silence. But I still do it anyways because it’s just nice and polite and common courtesy. But this woman had already annoyed me a little bit so I… I didn’t say it..

As soon as I made the decision not to say it I felt so guilty. So guilty! It was the same feeling that I get when I accidentally step on a ladybug. I felt awful, so awful that I immediately wanted to say it but too much time had already passed since the sneeze and it just would have sounded weird. Plus, about 10 seconds after she sneezed, she blessed herself sarcastically. “Bless me.” Which made me feel even worse because usually I’m the first to say it. And usually it’s unexpected, but because this woman didn’t expect it and I didn’t say it… it’s the one time someone actually wanted it, and wouldn’t give me a weird look and I didn’t say it. I carried that guilt with me for the rest of the day.

Now, yesterday was an exception, and it’s a mistake I won’t be making again because I always say bless you, and I will continue to say it to people. But whenever I’ve said it before, it’s always met with a look. It’s a look that shouldn’t be given when someone’s being nice and said bless you. It’s a look that should be given when you’re handed a dead puppy. Saying bless you is a nice thing to do when someone sneezes and it should be met with a thank you. But somehow it’s weird when you say it to someone that you don’t know. So I was just wondering when this happened yesterday, when it became socially unacceptable to say bless you to strangers. Kind of made me a little bit sad as well.