I’m not racist, I’m mask-ist.

If I see someone wearing a mask, I will probably run and hide, or start cowering toward the walls of a hallway, because I will have assumed that it’s their fault, not mine. They’re the ones yielding the deadly swine, and their coughs are the coughs that could strike the rest of us with eternal bed rest. I don’t stop to assume that those mask-wearing people may just be safer than I am, walking around the University broadly boasting their germ-free mentalities, not willing to inhale any viral or bacterial nonsense.

But I don’t really have to worry about swine anymore. I’ve been vaccinated. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, I received the squirts up my nose to inhibit my catching that gosh darn H1N1. The live virus weakened me and led to me being feverish and sickly for a few days after the vaccination, but all side effects aside, I was dancing around campus shouting, “I’VE BEEN SWINED!”(Yes, it’s a verb now. Merriam-Webster, please quote me on that — “to have been swined” — verb, in the past perfect tense: to have been vaccinated for the swine flu, and thereby immune to this season’s terminal gift from pigs.)

I became a little lax with my Purell, a little less antsy about popping Airborne and vitamin C every five seconds (despite its instructions to only use it every few hours) and a little less mask-ist than usual. (Well, I was just as mask-ist as usual, it was still their fault, but so what? I had been swined!)

But what I failed to realize was that I had only been swined, not eternally saved from all seasonal viral and bacterial infections. The regular flu could dawn upon me at any second, and my sinuses still enjoy clogging me up on a day-to-day basis. My glands could still be rocks, and I could still have a fever. It’s not swine, but it’s still November in Binghamton; there’s frost in the air and thus, it’s party time in my immune system for any virus.

What I realized post-vaccination is that I had never been so germ aware until there emerged a possibility for me to breathe my last breath thanks to a bunch of piglets. I’m a self-professed hypochondriac, so I’ve always been aware that any breath could be my last, but I’m not as keen when it comes to an epidemic. I, like many college students, shrug it off as, “Well, it couldn’t happen to me.”

But as the crises of the impending epidemic of the swine loomed closer and closer in the 607 area code, we all started jumping, taking abnormal precautions that we fail to take on a regular basis. I’m willing to bet that people spend more time washing their hands now than they did a year ago. But the flu is the flu and germs are germs and bacteria are bacteria, and they are always present (like how bacteria is in your yogurt — I know, I almost cried when I realized that too). We have to be aware constantly, not just when crisis looms upon us.

But for those of us who have been swined, just because we’ve been vaccinated doesn’t mean we should be running around with stickers that say, “Kiss me, I’m vaccinated,” because one of us very well may be carrying next season’s yet-to-be-determined plague. Or mono! Or pneumonia! Or bronchitis! Or the industrial revolution in their lungs! Or —

Just wash your damn hands, people. And I’ll stop being mask-ist, too.