swine infested rio
I just got back from working 2 months in Mexico. While I was there, somebody’s pig apparently got sick and sneezed on some poor soul who took it to market and now the whole world and my people in Colorado won’t have anything to do with me. I had heard there was an epidemic of swine flu and I saw the local people wearing blue paper masks (below their nose: true point of fact, as if the keeping of the chin clean was what that was all about, or perhaps if they saw a germ come flying – “When pigs fly” comes to mind… digression, my dear, the digression police are getting nearer and nearer with that funny little white jacket with the long sleeves….) Sigh…
Seriously, I turned my face north with a focus that would not be hindered by border guards or Haz-mat teams with biological warfare gear: I was headed home before “THEY” (who?) might close the borders. In reality, I had been working ensconced at a remote mine (not saying where but it sounds a lot like “Wanna-WHAT-o?” with nominal human contact though I had been feeding (illegally) skinny stray cats with drippy eyes and a couple feral poodles (”Why, no officer, I have not been in contact with livestock nor visited a farm on my trip, but there were these sickly little cats…) I never touched them and I wore gloves to remove the dishes (plastic yogurt tubs I had cut down to kitty-and-poodle-nose-size to dispense such things as left over beans, pasta, rice, tuna juice, etc.) I did not have the pleasure of socializing with drippy nosed humans while I was in Mexico, though. I had to go to Houston for that.
It was only in the Houston airport that I realized my imminent danger: people. Lots of them. All of the people in the airport looked sick to me. Pale. Red-eyed. Kleenex. Wheezy. They all needed to be rounded up and powdered with anti-microbial applications. And the CHILDREN! What germ bags! All the children in airports look like walking petri-dishes to me. Filthy, sticky little fingers and crusty nostrils. Stains on their shirts. Boogers. All that. Icky. But it was on the plane actually (am I showing my age?) on the JET that the incursion occurred: right when we were making our approach to DIA in Colorado, someone in the back of the jet started sneezing!! Ach-OOOO Ach-OOOOO Ach-OOOOOO five times! And with every effusion, the other passengers cringed and muttered Hail Mary’s praying to God for delivery from the evil peril aboard our craft.
The sneezer was a germ-terrorist. I wondered if brave guys in business suits were going to have to tackle him on behalf of the welfare of the rest of us. Women were crying. Babies were falling into comas. The sneeze juice hung in the stagnant vessel air like anthrax. We had no choice but to breath it in. That is where I was exposed to swine flu.
When I got back home, no one wanted to see me. Not even my business associates. I put myself in personal quarantine for a couple of days and then ventured out in public – first to my eye doctor to get a new pair of glasses. The receptionist hung back from me:
“Weren’t you afraid of the swine flu health threats?” she asked.
“Health threats?” I asked. “Malaria, TB, cholera, Dengue fever, Yellow fever, certain snakes and spiders, teenage boys with AK-47s and little angry men in the jungle with machetes are my definition of health threats,” I told her. “Swine flu and Duck flu and Elephant flu are here every year and you can get exposed to it on the bus so stay in your house.” Be careful. Stay in your house. Haven’t you heard? We are at Code ORANGE ALERT!!!!!!!! (Hmmm, after thought: do you think Obama has to use the same color code as Bush or can he change them now to say, code BLUE?)
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