I had just walked across an intersection when I heard a very loud, male cough. I looked to my right and saw a man who was probably in his early fifties. He was taking his hand from his mouth and had a self-satisfied smile on his face, so I thought he was probably the cougher.
I took the train a few minutes ago. At one of the first stops, I heard a loud cough. I looked to my left; the person who had coughed was a young man who was leaving the train.
There was more coughing yesterday and today by some of the homeless guests of the Pine Street Inn. Based on past experience, I think that there's not much I can do to get it stopped; I'll have to wait until it escalates to my being called names, physically threatened or hit to be able to tell staff that I'm being bullied. If I make an issue of the coughing bullying, I'll be screamed at, made to leave the shelter, or forced into an invasive, degrading, harmful form of psychiatrc treatment.
Copyright L. Kochman, May 6, 2015 @ 12:34 p.m.