How To Stay Sane Through Swine Flu Madness

The media’s coverage of the swine flu has a lot of us showing signs of paranoia, anxiety, depression–you name it. But it doesn’t have to be that way! Here are a few rules you can follow to keep yourself sane.

Don’t fire your maid

Hey, Consuelo isn’t even from Mexico. She’s from Ecuador. That’s a whole other country on a whole other continent. So, she’s about as likely to have swine flu as you are. Besides, the last thing you need to worry about at a time like this is a pile of dirty laundry.

Don’t sit around the house all day with your family wearing a surgical mask.

This is pretty much our worst nightmare and would drive any sane person crazy. And an unhealthy mental state results in a compromised immune system. Better to go out with your friends and drink too much beer. Sure, alcohol compromises your immunity, too, but what a way to go.

Don’t order the slaughter of all the pigs in your country.

What are you, the Pharoah? Well, maybe you are. The government of Egypt has ordered the slaughter of all 300, 000 pigs in that country to stop the spread of swine flu despite being assured by the World Health Organization that it’s not transmitted via pigs and despite the fact that Egypt hasn’t had one case reported. Don’t they know that life without bacon is how The Manson Family got started?

Don’t ask the whole world to change the name of the flu just for you. Especially if you are always blowing shit up.

We just got the word out to everyone that there’s this thing called the swine flu that they should be terrified about. Now you want us to change the name because it’s disrespectful to Jews and Muslims? But Mexican flu is not offensive to any people that you can think of, huh? Let’s keep it simple and just blame the pigs, shall we?

Don’t just make out with a Mexican “to get it over with.”

While the Mexican might be appreciative, they might also really be into you and your using them to get the swine flu could leave them feeling sad. And hell hath no fury like a Mexican scorned. Instead, only make out with a Mexican for the right reasons. Because you are horny.

Don’t become so obsessed with swine flu that you forget how fucked we all were before the swine flu.

In the last two months, more than 80 new cases of grisi skinis, or “crazy sickness” in the indigenous language of Miskito, have been reported in Bilwi, Nicaragua. The disease causes hysteria followed by a coma-like state. But no one’s reporting on that because it’s only affected the Miskito so far. There’s also that darn bullet flu that’s still going around Mexico. And our national debt, the war in Iraq, North Korea and the hole in the ozone haven’t gone anywhere, either. The bees are still disappearing, too. So, get your nose out of the swine flu Twitter search and start lending a hand.