gesundheit!

so pleasant to hear someone exclaim
“gesundheit!” when ya sneeze,
meaning the German word for “health,”
literally wishing good health for someone who shows the possibility of
sickness---
so much better than the ignorant, superstitious &
idiotic blabbering of
“bless you,” or “’god’ bless you,”
in which the “blesser” might believe
upon seeing another sneeze that
because their “soul” leaves their body when they
sneeze, that “Lucifer” himself may in fact
invade through that open portal during the act of
atchoo!---
or you may think,
as they did during the middle ages when
The Black Death was in its heyday,
that when someone sneezed
they were on that one-way road to death &
so if one witnessed such an event,
the proper thing was to “bless” such an individual’s “soul”
so that they’d start off good on their way to meet
“god”
(always ironic that this “god” was the same that “created” The
Black Death…but anyhoo---).

so a tip of my hat to my German friends who are being courteous,
or my non-German speaking friends who are struggling through a German word
to avoid such lunacy,
as there is no need to go so far as to say
“Darwin says that he’s sorry you sneezed”
(as how would anyone know that now?) or to some extent thereof---
we are lucky to live with those who will extend us as much as a
GESUNDHEIT!