“In a kid’s world, cooties and other similar contagions may not be real — but they’re deadly serious. The North American children’s lore of cooties is ‘a social contaminant that pass[es] from one child to another, a form of interpersonal pollution.’ … Children who play this game learn and absorb concepts familiar to a public health emergency” (such as immunization — remember cooties shots?), “but on their own strange terms. … [The] search for a satisfactory meaning might not mean much when it comes to children. Because nonsense makes a lot of sense in a kid’s world.” – JSTOR Daily