My nose tingled, a familiar warning. A sneeze escaped me, and before its echo faded, three voices offered a blessing. “Bless you.” From the left, a man comparing drills. “Bless you.” From the right, a woman with paint cans. “Bless ya, big guy.” From somewhere I could not even SEE. In my land, a sneeze is a private failure. You suppress it, apologize to it, and carry on in shame. Here, a sneeze is a flare fired over the aisle, and the entire nation is on standby to answer it. I asked the drill man if we knew each other. “Nope.” “Yet you blessed me.” “You sneezed, man.” The logic was airtight and I had no response. You sneeze, you are blessed. Cause, effect. A spiritual reflex installed in three hundred million people, triggered faster than thought. I tested it. Not on purpose. The dust of the lumber aisle tested it for me. Sneeze — “bless you” — sneeze — “bless you again” — sneeze — “you good?” You good. The third sneeze downgrades you from blessed to monitored. There are rules, and nobody wrote them down. I began carrying the duty myself. A woman sneezed by the fasteners. “BLESS YOU,” I said, with the full weight of my lineage. Too loud. I startled her into a second sneeze. I blessed that one quieter. We found our peace. A blessing here does not check your name. It is in the air before your sneeze has landed. I practice my draw daily. Yesterday I blessed a man through a closed window. He could not hear me. The blessing counts. I have decided it counts.