Slothoughts Hypolite

That's the prescription we have been given for swine flu, or as we now like to call it, so as not to offend the sensibilities of our porcine brothers and sisters, H1N1.

Of course what we were really told was to wash our hands endlessly, for a full 20 seconds at a time. If you actually look at a watch for 20 seconds, you'll see that is a rather long time. So long, in fact, that you can't even come close to guessing it. Thus, you need to find something to say or do while you're washing your hands all that time. Something that takes a full 20 seconds to say or do. That something turns out to be two complete Hail Marys.

Now, given that I was born and bred a Protestant, one of the more liberal Protestant denominations actually (née UPC USA; currently UCC), how would I know about Hail Marys?

Well, it seems that when I was in 7th or 8th grade, I used to listen to the radio a lot. I had rather a good one, a Hammarlund HQ100 A. I liked changing stations on both AM and shortwave to see what I could find. I would listen to stations from Buffalo, Nashville, Cleveland, Boston, Toronto, Moscow, Quito. You name it, I probably heard it at one time or another.

One day, I chanced upon a group reciting the rosary. Over and over again they chanted:

Hail Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women.
Blessed is the fruit of thy womb,
Jesus Christ, Our Lord.

Holy Mary, mother of God,
Pray for us sinners,
Now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

I may have this a bit wrong. Seventh or eighth grade was a long time ago. Whatever, when I started washing my hands, and looking at my watch to see if I'd done it for twenty seconds, those words from long ago popped into my head. I discovered that, when said at a measured pace, two full Hail Marys, at least as I had remembered them, took up twenty seconds.

So that's how we combat swine flu H1N1: we spend quality time at the sink saying our Hail Marys. The Pope would be proud of me.

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