Rich, I tell you, rich!

Today is flu shot day at Krause Publications. I plan to get one this afternoon.

Last year, the inoculations were given later in the month of October and as luck would have it, I was already ill with flu.

This is the regular annual dose rather than the one for H1N1, otherwise known as swine flu.

I was pleased to learn that I was at very near the end of the priority list for the swine flu shot. I guess in this case age seems to yield the privilege of being less susceptible to it.

Fortunately for me, there was never any inoculation for coin fever, or whatever you might want to call the collecting impulse. That ailment struck me down in 1963 when I was very young and I have never been the same since.

Coin collecting fever should not be confused with gold fever. While symptoms can be similar for a while, gold fever tends to get worse with time as visions of great wealth start dancing in your head.

Coin fever tends to be a self-regulating kind of illness where the boundaries are set by the number of holes in a particular album or the number of coins one can put in a family budget before the objections start.

Do those who already have a case of coin fever get a less severe form of gold fever when the latter strikes?

Possibly.

Constant attention to gold even in down markets and the experiences that come with age can build up the anti-bodies to getting carried away.

Perhaps like swine flu, the older we are, the more we can resist the exclamation, “We’re going to be rich, I tell you, rich!”

Then again, maybe I just don’t hear as well as I used to.