halfway there by terry ernest
Singing the Porcine Blues
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halfwaythere@ragemonthly.com
If recent media hype about the swine flu invokes memories of Arnold was the first time in 10 years that I got a flu shot, and this was the first flu I have had
Ziffel … you may be halfway there. in 10 years. While I was convalescing I checked out the CDC’s web site where they
said in one breath that they were not encouraging routine testing to determine
Not since the late 1990s, when you couldn’t draw a breath without getting specific flu strains and in another breath they were touting the latest swine flu vic-
an earful of paralyzing trivia about JonBenét Ramsey, has a story so moved the tim statistics. The timing of my flu fell somewhere around the CDC’s confirmation
world as “The Swine Flu 2009.” Known by geek-medicos as Influenza-A H1N1, of 1350 cases nationwide so I guess there were really about half a million. Perhaps
early media hype suggested that the world was coming to an end. Schools their statistics come from polling. You know, 75% of America said this and 33%
were closed, folks everywhere were wearing surgical masks and poor Michael said that. I don’t know who the pollsters are but they never ask my opinion. There
Jackson had to hire a full time assistant to follow him around and spray him with must be a specific subset of Americans who are repeatedly consulted for their
designer disinfectants. In my office the boss wanted to positively respond to the opinions on everything and who control our social evolution. It must be the same
threat so he placed bottles of waterless hand sanitizer on every desk, cabinet and subset of folks that represent the swine flu victim stats.
countertop and followed that up with e-mails to remind everyone to cover their As a kid of the early 1960s it seemed that everyone got the flu just about every
mouths when they cough and sneeze. America certainly knows how to respond winter. Really cool kids learned to work the flu for at least five days out of school
to endemic healthcare threats. Not wanting to incite panic among the people or and all the sympathy mom could muster. Make no mistake there was some seri-
another drop in the DOW, the federal government’s healthcare spokesman came ous talent involved in getting a full week out of school. For an otherwise healthy
out with my favorite line to date. “We expect most victims of the swine flu to fully kid the flu rarely provided more than two or three days worth of fever and flushing
recover if they survive the first two days.” I felt a surge of pride as my government so inventing ways to prolong the symptoms was essential learning. It didn’t take
moved to calm the hysterical masses. long to discover that five minutes of face time with a 60 watt bulb was just enough
How sad for the first family that became trans-mutated by the now infamous to keep mom schlepping chicken soup and cool compresses. Gee, I can’t imagine
porcine virus and all because their teenage son couldn’t get any at school and what we would have done if our parents were ‘green’ aware in those days and had
tried to find love in the barnyard instead. Hey who knows, maybe chickenpox was replaced our warm and fuzzy incandescents with those fever-free fluorescents.
started by that kid from the movie The Summer of 42… what was his name… oh Hell, I grew up before microwave ovens. I guess we would have had to crank our
yeah…Hermie, the boy with the poultry fetish who liked to cock-a-doodle-do. hot water bottles up a notch or French-kiss the water heater. I would have been
After days of making fun of the swine flu media circus, how ironic was it that I equal to the task. School had its good points but being at home with a room full of
developed the flu? It was a bitch too, three days of fever and chills and yada, yada, toys and a mom who fusses over every sniffle was truly gold. And who could stick
yada… everything but the pug nose and curly tail. I’m not actually sure it was the their nose up at gold plated flu, porcine or otherwise?
swine flu because my health plan wouldn’t pay for the test to determine the spe-
cific strain. I guess they figured that since I survived the first two days, who cared if If you remember cod liver oil and enema buckets you are probably
I had the pig version or the common strain? I also find it ironic that last November halfway there too.
26 RAGE monthly | June 2009
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