Last Wednesday I was feeling a little under the weather. Woke up and felt dead tired, but probably not too sick to go to work. Of course the second I stepped on the train I started to feel intense dizziness and realized I probably should have worked from home. So as soon as I got to the office I emailed my boss to say I was leaving, and then I went home.After getting some sleep I felt much better. That should have ended the story. But no. As soon as I mentioned to anyone that I had been feeling a little sick I would get one of the following reactions: 1) "You're sick? Uh-oh, hope it's not swine flu!" or 2) "Sick?" *stepping backwards* *nervous glancing from side to side* "Soooo, do you have a fever? Sore throat? Chills?" No! I don't have a fever, or a runny snout, or an unquenchable desire for truffles. I feel better now leave me alone!
That same day an email went out to everyone in the office saying that if anyone had any symptoms whatsoever they should work from home. Later that day we also got an email from the owners of the building, wanting to know if anyone in any of the ten floors had swine flu.
Then there's Dustin who lives in ground zero of the America Swine Flu (NEW YORK CITY) getting texts from his mom, updating him on the status of the upcoming epidemic. This is why I hope that my mom never learns how to text.
I understand that swine flu is dangerous and it's best to err on the side of caution, etc etc blah blah. My problem is that too many people are incapable of handling news like this without freaking out. Several summers ago I was at a picnic when a woman saw a mosquito. Her immediate reaction was to jump on top of a picnic table and start screaming "WEST NILE! WEST NILE!"
All I'm saying is, right now (in the US at least) swine flu is sort of everywhere and nowhere. It's the phantom disease covered round the clock by cable news, watching it move country to country, state to state, bringing us to a total of.... 286 confirmed cases in the US. Is that it? After watching people freak out over dirty bombs, bird flu, Y2K, and more code orange terror alerts than I can count, I feel pretty confident that I'll make it through this. If someone I know ends up with swine flu, I promise to start texting my mom daily.
If anything, swine flu has provided us with some good jokes. It's a shame people don't freak out and react to the AIDS virus the same way they do with swine flu. There's a whole continent of people suffering from it.
ReplyDeletehey phil! thanks for your comments. it is interesting to hear about the swine flu commotion in the US now that there are more confirmed cases there than in mexico. i think you're right when you say that swine flu is everywhere and nowhere at once... it is so surreal here, that many mexicans think it doesn't actually exist and that it's all a government conspiracy in order to create a new north american currency. unlikely. anyhow, parents are definitely the most concerned sector of the population... my dad wishes he airlift me out of here, and it's difficult to convince him that all is well when i am competing with the fear mongering of the us news media.
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