Covid 20

I was recently at an exhibition in Germany, manning our stand and welcoming anyone who wanted to discuss battery anode materials. The queue to talk to me, as you can imagine, was huge. The stand across the walkway from me was a Chinese company selling mixing equipment to manufacturers of battery cells. They had one little chap, I’m not stereotyping the Chinese here, he was short even by Chinese standards, who was a pleasant man, whom I had spoken to on the first day. This little fella had a hidden talent, which he would reveal on the last day of the exhibition. So, on the last day of the exhibition I noticed, on the way to the venue, that a lot of people were sneezing and coughing. Even my colleague turned up at our stand not feeling too well.

I was talking to two visitors when I noticed the small Chinese man walking towards his stand with a facemask on. He looked ill but at least he was considerate enough to wear a mask. As he got close, he suddenly reached for his mask and pulled it down, revealing his mouth and nose. With his eyes closed he sneezed………violently. I’m not saying he let fly a lot of spittle and snot but I thought someone had set off the fire sprinklers. It was literally dripping from me and the two gentlemen I was conversing with. As I stood there in shock the little Chinese man bolted behind some machinery on his stand, still dripping mucus from his face. I can only imagine he had gone to finish his lunch of bat sandwiches. I was snapped out of my shocked stare by the man standing next to me. He too was also covered in spittle and mucus but he was coughing and making rasping sounds from his throat, like a cat coughing up a furball. It was then I remembered that he was actually talking when the sneeze happened and his mouth was open when we got plastered in mucus. To this day, I bet he doesn’t remember what we were talking about.