To the trees!!!

Oh my GOD!! Red headlines! Lots of them, DEATH and masks and bio-hazard suits!!!

I'm no scientist for the Center for Disease Control, at least not anymore, but this whole horrifying, sleep-depriving panic sweeping the world over this swine flu seems awfully inflated and cinematic. I fully recognize that the prospect of 1918 repeating is somewhere in the scale of reality, at which point yes, I would use all of my accumulated Bear Grylls knowledge to build a bungalow in Canada out of elk skins and throw rocks at anyone who comes close.

However, I get the sense from all of this hype and fear-mongering that maybe 1918 is to make up for the fact that it's not so 1933 as we've been told to fear it is. Aside from Matt Drudge being a complete hack and sensationalist, the rest of the media seems to froth at the mouth (is that a symptom? i thought it was just bad coffee breath! oh god!) from images of foreigners wearing masks or these huge numbers of Mexicans succumbing to the unstoppable virus...

Wait, what?

and huh? It may be less powerful than the standard winter virus?

Meanwhile, we're all being told to stay 6 feet away from each other and sing the ABC song while washing hands. It's interesting to hear NPR talk about how cute and quirky it is to sing the ABC's as an adult, while maintaining the stress of avoiding unnecessary contact these days.

I guess the hype did lead me to cross to the other side of the street yesterday when a homeless dude started violently trying to farmer-blow the snot out of his nose in front of me. The wind whipped up and as he was bent over, huffing and grunting, mist whirling around him, an image of that end scene in E.T. with the biohazard suits mixed with recent headlines on Drudgereport to give me a little added concern.



In the end though, maybe this scare will teach people to wash their hands, like they should have all along (much like the depression scare has taught people to be grown-ups with money). If it turns out to be as real and devastating as we're told, there's no sense in panicking anyway since there probably will be no escape. THERE'S NO ESCAPE.