No Fear …. Or Should I Say I’m Not Really A Jerk!
Okay, so I am writing this during what I feel is a crazy dramatic reaction to a virus. I look around and see all of these people hysterical over something I have zero fear about. I am talking zero fear.

1. I am not afraid of getting it.
2. I’m not afraid I am passing it to people.
3. I am not afraid it is going to wipe out society.

I just want to go on with life as usual, but it seems that many people are not on the same page as me and I can’t figure it out. I know I can be sassy about it. I can get mouthy about it. Some have told me that my "dismissiveness" of it is offending. What??

The last thing I want to do is offend people, but I go back to the fact that I am 100% not afraid of it.

So therefore it’s hard for me to find the words to have a conversation about it with people. So why is that? I have wondered this for quite a few months now and then I remembered. I was raised by Bear!!!

Here she comes again. Bear Dog, aka my mom, molding me into this person that people either adore or think,

“what the hell is wrong with her”??

Ha ha! Let’s look back at my childhood. I was raised on a horse ranch in Central California. I was also the youngest of the Lusby (yes, that was my maiden name) brood. Bear was raised in the Midwest and she was the youngest of a single mom (which was unheard of in those days). Either she was never taught the art of hygiene or she forgot by the time I came around. Not that we are dirty people. Actually, most people would describe me as an extremist in the neatness department, but I just don’t ever remember my mom telling us to wash our hands???

I would come straight in from a bare-hand horse manure fight with my friends and whip up a sandwich without a second thought about it! Think about it. On our ranch we had horses, cows, goats, sheep, dogs, cats, those disgusting black and white rats, hamsters, and birds. This girl touched them all and thought a dip in the pool was a great way to tidy up if I tidied up at all.

Washing your hands before you eat? Not a thing in my world, so bring on the germs. But….lick on a spoon if you are cooking for me and I will cut you!

Now let’s move on to Bear and her kitchen hygiene. This is the one everyone loves! We had this built in wood cutting board on the center island. It even had slots built into it for her knives. I can vividly remember many days with chicken breasts just sitting on the board for hours thawing out for one of her dinner creations.

Yep, chicken thawing on wood with the juices dripping down the knife slots onto our breakfast cereal boxes. I know! Gross!!!

But we had no idea. When they were done thawing, she would wipe the juices into the sink and she was good to go.

Now onto cutting up lettuce for our iceberg salad with shredded cheese and boxed croutons. Right there on the same cutting board that had been soaking up chicken juice for 25 years! So weird how none of us died from some kind of food poisoning, right?

Lastly, Bear just had no time for us to be sick. LUSBY'S-DON'T-GET-SICK.  We just don’t or at least that is what she told us. My dad is a physician, so we had cabinets full of drugs. Slightly under the weather? He would just pop into his stash and voila, all better!!

Honestly, I can’t remember a day when any of us stayed home from school for a real illness. We only faked sick and she knew it, but she let us think we were fooling her. It is weird how we only got sick on the days that she either had tennis or bridge and wouldn’t be home to see us swimming or riding horses when we should have been in bed fighting off whatever fake illness had taken us down. You add all that up with my profession now in health and wellness where we all work on keeping our immune system at peak performance and no wonder, right? I mean seriously I have had every germ and virus imaginable on me and in me and my body had to learn to fight them off. I have what I refer to as “rock gut” which means I can eat anything with absolutely no effects whatsoever.

Don’t even get me started on all these food allergies everyone has. Group those two things with the mindset that says, “Tory Brandt you never get sick”, and there you go. I have had that attitude with my husband and boys too. I can’t remember ever telling my boys to wash their hands? I remember saying you need to get in the shower because you stink, but it was never to clean them of germs.

For you ladies out there, I can’t even with a sick husband!

I just wanted to explain myself to all of you who follow me, know me, work with me, etc. that I don’t mean to be a heartless jerk. I am just not afraid. I wish you all a healthy and happy day!