The Trouble with Having 972 Roommates

McMURDO STATION, ANTARCTICA


Salad is a rare occurrence here. Between our general inability to grow things on this continent, limited budget, and a bulging population, we are lucky to see greens more than once a week. But tonight I bypass the salad line for the second day in a row, in search of chicken soup and chocolate pudding. Of course, there is none of that to be found either, and I settle for orange juice and toast. It seems I have come down with a case of the crud. I've developed a deep raspy man voice, and find myself constantly coughing, trying to (unsuccessfully) clear my throat. The crud is a particular strain of disease that occurs when you swirl together the germs of several hundred people from all over the world, then just when they've been together long enough to develop some immunity to each other, introduce a plane load or two of new people bearing germs from the wide wide world. If this can happen at about the time of year (mid-january, for example) that everyone's immune system has been completely disabled by poor nutrition, inadequate sleep, and overwork, all the better. 
While I only have to share my bedroom with one other person, I share a kitchen table with nearly 1000. Along with exercise equipment, and computer keyboards, and doorknobs, and telephones, and all manner of other germ bearing equipment. It's really only a matter of time for me once the crud starts sweeping the station. I sat down at breakfast yesterday morning with nine of my favorite people. We did a quick survey to find that exactly one of us was completely well, one teetering on the edge of health, and the other eight of us with some symptoms. Just as we had sorted out who had the "throat thing" and who had the "congestion thing" and the unlucky few who had both, one more friend and coworker joined us announcing that she was having trouble breathing. Perhaps we'll be adding an "upper respiratory thing" to the mix.