Delimma

Sometimes when I cough, people think my cough is actually a sneeze and so they say ‘bless you.’ When that happens, I don’t know what to do. Normally, when I actually DO sneeze and someone says ‘bless you’ I say ‘thank you.’ But if I say ‘thank you’ when someone says ‘bless you’ when I actually coughed, I feel like I’m being deceitful by pretending to have sneezed when I, in fact, coughed. But then if I say ‘That was a cough, not a sneeze,’ then the person feels stupid. Surprisingly, though, I’m more comfortable with making someone look stupid than I am with being deceitful. But usually, I just don’t respond at all, which means that I feel rude for ignoring someone who just attempted to bless me after thinking that I sneezed.

Does that ever happen to you? What do you do?