Swine Flu or Swine Fluke?

Good news for everyone:

Scorsese's signed on, however the pig from Babe is still in some intense contract negotiations. With any luck, by Thanksgiving of 2010 you'll be headed to the nearest cinema to enjoy "Outbreak 2: Babe's Revenge." I can't wait.

All joking aside, which it never should be, the Swine Flu is sweeping the nation, taking down hordes of people for 72 hours or so. So are we going to watch the world end in pandemic form? Is this Al Qaeda's secret attack? Or is it just another fly by night epidemic like Sars and West Nile Virus?

Whatever it is, it's starting to break away from it's meager one or two cases per county of the past few months and jump to numbers like one or two cases per neighborhood. My own little college town is seeing a ridiculous increase in diagnoses and is starting to turn into a Mecca for the piggy influenza. So should we fear for our lives? I personally don't think it's that big of a deal.

Now understand this: I am not a doctor or scientist or prophet, but it seems to me that the Swine Flu is the equivalent to 3 a day practices for a football team while the regular flu would be a normal week of practice. Three a day practice sessions only last for a few days, maybe a week at most and tend to be much more intensive. You dread them because you know they're coming, but after a day, you're used to it and after 3 to 5 days, it's over with and you move on. Your body hurts, your mind thinks it's the end for you and everyone you know avoids you because you probably won't be very fun to hang around. Occasionally you have a player that can't handle it and goes to the hospital, and in terrible cases, someone might die from the toll his body is taking. But for the most part, everyone makes it out just fine.

The regular flu however is like normal practice. It sucks. It drags on forever. You have days that are terrible and days that aren't so bad, but you never know when which one will occur. You still aren't much fun to be around while it's going on, but because it's just "the flu" you go on with your life and try to maintain a state of somewhat normalcy. But still, every now and then you have someone who just can't handle it and has to go the emergency room, and in pretty frequent cases some people die from it.

When the Swine Flu first broke in late weeks of April, the nation was flipping its proverbial [expletive]. In three weeks, something like 7 people had died from it. In the same amount of time something like 700 people had died of the regular, ho-hum, everyday version of the flu. Of course those figures are made up on the spot, as most figures are, but I promise I'm not far off. And for me, those numbers don't seem too bad. If I had to choose between the two, I'd take the Swine kind because it makes for a better story.

So what now?

We deal with it. In the past months, more people have gotten it, and more people have survived it. Some people have probably had it and not even known it. I think these are good signs. So if you think you have it, go to the doctor, get your scrips filled, enjoy the codeine vacation in your bed and rent the first season of Trueblood. (I promise you'll be hooked.)



Your other option is to be convinced you're dying or are going to get real sick and if you have that 'tude about it, you probably will get a lot sicker than you should. Your immune system is like 85% mental (again figure made up), so if you let the pigs control you, they will, but if you say, "Hey Gordy, get the flip off me and let me live my life," then you're going to be OK.

After spending my morning at the student health center on the beautiful campus of Ole Miss with my swine infected lady friend, I'm pretty convinced that this too shall pass, and one day we'll watch "Babe 3: Kill 'Em All"* and have a good laugh about it.

But until that day, drink your Vitamin Water as I am right now, and tell the pig to step off.

Besides could something this sweet kill us all...?


*There was actually a sequel to Babe called "Babe: Pig in the City." I must've missed that one. Shucks.