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2006-11-13 - 6:11 p.m.

Pandemic Preventative Measures: 1) Wash Your Fucking Hands 2) Don't Bump Fuzzies With K-Fed

Didja hear they let the woman who drowned her 2 daughters in 2003 out of a mental hospital on Friday? The only conditions are that she stays on her meds and continues treatment.

Well, I'm sure once she blows that off next week, the voices will certainly remind her.

Also, I stumbled across this fascinating online book about the Bird Flu & pandemics this afternoon (hey, it beats doing data entry). I only got into chapter 1, but I was hooked. It's scary. It's morbid. It's awful. But so very interesting.

Check out this fact (there were fucking footnotes and everything!) from Chapter 1, section E.:

"The 1918 influenza pandemic killed more people in a single year than the bubonic plague ('black death') in the Middle Ages killed in a century. The 1918 virus killed more people in 25 weeks than AIDS has killed in 25 years."

Jesus in a wheelbarrow! Did you know that? Because I certainly fucking didn't. My knowledge about that general era goes something like this:

1917-ish: Archiduke Ferdinand (?) was assassinated and everyone got in a big 'ol nasty hissy fit (WWI).

1920's: Flappers! The Charleston! And goddammit, Prohibition. Which begat speakeasies. Now we're talking (quietly)!

1929: Stock market crashed. The Great Depression. Bread lines. Unemployment. Bad shit.

1930's: FDR and Shirley Temple movies. Yay!

When I think of that era, I don't think about the flu of 1918. If someone mentioned it, I'd be like "Oh right, that." But I had NO IDEA how bad it was.

If you start reading that online book, make sure you're not eating anything. You really don't want to be gnawing on a Slim Jim when you read about people with liquified insides that bleed from every orifice. Not to mention the folks who were stacked like cordwood, wrapped in sheets in makeshift morgues, who weren't quite dead yet. Monty Python fan? That whole "bring out your dead" shit -- happened in modern times. Furthermore, the spread of the disease, sounds so "worst case scenario" like something out of a Michael Crichton novel. But it happened!

Up till today I was like "Bird Flu, Schmird Poo! Stop trying to scare us with that blah-blah 'the world is unprepared and we're all gonna die' bullshit!"

Now I'm all:

HOLY SHIT! STOCK UP ON WATER AND CHEF BOYARDEE! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!

Well, ya know, kinda.

1) I'm too tired to go running around in a panic right now. And totally not in the mood to stop at the store on the way home. But next time I go, I'll be looking at the bottled water and canned goods in a whole new light. Come to momma.

2) I've mastered the art of going for days at a time without venturing into the big disease-ridden world. So a few weeks wouldn't be a big stretch. Hell, the only reason I go anywhere is because I have a job.

But those "dedicated" fuckers at the office who stumble into work to return a call to a (whoops! dead) client, will all wind up writhing on the floor (choking on their blood, pus, and liquified lungs) while I'll be cozied up in bed on sick pay ("I think I'm coming down with the flu" - Heh!) counting the hundreds of batteries, bottles of water and hand sanitizer, bags of dog food, candles, Duraflame logs, boxes of Little Debbie snack cakes and rubber gloves, canned goods and of course -- Ritz and spray cheese -- that I was smart enough to squirrel away months before, while they were busy going to the movies, the bowling alley, church, the soccer game...and THE MALL at CHRISTMAS.

HA!

And if I'm wrong...well, I'll be right eventually. Better to gain 15 pounds on Little Debbie in January than take the chance of dropping dead over a Cinnabon cash register in the food court with blood pouring out your eyeballs, ya know?

At least that's my motto.

So...what's your plan for the next pandemic?

As much as I'd love to rot all over my mattress, I wouldn't mind driving (or being driven) over the edge of the Grand Canyon in a pink convertible with a few of my fave D-land friends. Whaddya say?

Scoop me up around 3 pm. We'll party on the other side.

Don't forget the Little Debbies.