You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
EBOLA.
Planes being diverted because a passenger has an elevated temperature and an air sickness bag stuck to his lips.
EBOLA.
Watch out. It’s scary.
“You’re from Dallas? OMG! You just sneezed? You don’t have Ebola, do you?”
Ebola. It’s the new millennium version of Swine Flu.
Swine Flu was the ugly step child of the Bird Flu.
Bird Flu was the illegitimate child of H1N1?
Oh wait, wasn’t that an angrier version of Legionnaires disease?
Legionnaires Disease? I always felt like that was a patriotic infirmity, like it did something good in WWI, stormed a hill and got sick.
Hey does anyone remember AIDS? What the hell happened to AIDS?
I remember when Herpes was scary. To a college kid in the 80’s, The Herp was the real deal!
“What’s that on your lips, Mikey?”
Now we’ve dreamed up a new exotic mystery illness.
It’s from West Africa. It conjures images of a Monkey Virus from a Hollywood horror flick.
What’s scarier than stuff we can’t see and we can’t understand.
Americans can’t even conjugate a sentence; you think we will stop and read the WHAT TO KNOW pamphlet governing the latest disease of the month?
Who has time when it has a scary powerful name that rolls off the tongue.
Say it with me slowly.
EEEE BOW LAAAA
It’s almost fun to say Ebola.
It’s round and smooth and forces your tongue to touch special places on your lips that help formulate words.
E b o l a.
Of course it’s scary. It’s West African zombie voo doo. It’s witch doctors wearing full body condoms and haz mat respirators.
EBOLA = SCARY
This just proves that PERCEPTION = REALITY.
If the perception is Ebola is going to kill you, then obviously, Ebola has no choice but to kill you.
I think we use to call this Y2K.
Remember that vomit stain of fear?
Computers are not prepared to change over to the year 2000, some moron said.
OMG. Planes will fall out of the sky. Electric grids will crash. People will live in the stone age and it will be post apocalyptic beef jerky parties in the woods.
Yeah, that was scary till about 1 minute after midnight and we all said “Whew!” Now we can obsess about something else.
And guess what?
We’re stupid humans and we like to obsess and worry.
Left to our own devices, and no Ebola to worry about, we’ll worry about Purdue chicken filled with steroids and antibiotics.
It’s killing you!
Hey people. The minute you’re born you start dying. Everything is killing you.
I’ll take Purdue chicken over Ebola any day.
Ebola?
Please. Don’t get me started.
More people will die from impure water in India.
More people will die in December in Wyoming driving into wayward moose.
But the news media wants to beat the EBOLA horse.
Ride the sick pony news cowboy.
Hang on for 8 seconds.
Scare em if you got em!
E – FREAKIN -BOLA
The world keeps turning and people dream up more crap to be concerned about.
Solar Flares. Ozone depletion. Flouridated water. Pesticides.
You know what? Everything is going to kill you.
It might be a guy in a hockey mask with a chain saw; it might be Ebola.
Whatever. Live life. Just live life. Dont’ worry so freaking much. You worry so much about what is bad that you forget to remember what is good for you.
Life is good for. Not worrying all the damn time is good for you.
Why do you people do that? Do people just do what our DNA mandates we do?
Trust me; more Americans will die this year from the Flu than Ebola.
You would have to take an Ebola shower at Niagara Falls to get the mortality rate of the flu each year.
According to CNN, approximately 36,000 people die each year from the Flu.
36,000 people.
That’s like the entire crowd at a Cubs game, dying from one disease with a cute little name.
Flu. It’s so fluffy and cute. Flu. It sounds like a puff of air that comes out of a babie’s freshly talcum powdered butt.
Flu is such a who cares that most of us don’t even get a flu shot each year.
You know why? Because the perception is that people are going to die from the flu every year. They’re suppose to die from the flu, aren’t they?
36,000 of you will die. It’s the cosmic roll of the dice.
Now pass me the baked beans, ma, I’m hungry, ain’t got no damn time to be worrying about no flu.
More people will be eaten by sharks than die from Ebola.
Doesn’t stop you from swimming in the Gulf does it?
More people will fall out of the upper deck at Giant stadium and die this year than die from EBOLA.
Doesn’t stop people from rooting for the Giants, does it.
I’m just trying to throw some water on this Ebola grease fire.
I’m a News guy. I know when News people put the microscope on an issue, it becomes more real, more intense, more real.
Ebola?
It’s like death du jour.
If it’s not Ebola, it’ll be something else dreamed up in a Hollywood script factory.
I wish people were scared of kids killing kids with guns like they are scared of Ebola.
Maybe we’d develop some damn protocol for that?
I wish people feared domestic violence like they fear inhaling Ebola.
And by the way; I don’t think you can inhale Ebola.
A woman can however be punched in the face with a closed fist in an elevator and knocked unconscious and everyone can yawn.
Now if Ray Rice’s wife had Ebola?
The NFL Commissioner himself would wear a body condom pledging “We will not rest till there is a cure for Ebola related Domestic Violence in Garden State elevators.”
All the damned EBOLA talk on the news. The Today show and the Ebola exclusive. Good Morning America and the West African fry cook with a bad cough and Ebola like symptoms.
Enough all ready.
Educate and inform and tell me about real world issues that will probably kill me like kids texting and driving.
I get it.
Ebola is scary.
Ebola makes you sick.
Ebola kills you.
But so many things can kill you.
I’ve seen people die on the interstate with a beam through their head?
I know more people who have died of beams through their skulls than I know of people who have died of Ebola.
I’ve been to a single home where a mother and 8 of her children burned in a house fire.
I wish that family had Ebola. Give them at few days at Vanderbilt and today they’re shagging high flies with their dad in the back yard.
Ebola?
What happened to syphilis?
What about scurvy?
What about mange?
My own news people were hyperventilating today talking about fronting a live shot from the local hospital.
“What are the protocols if a patient comes in with Ebola like symptoms?” One producer asked.
“This is so scary,” another says.
“I don’t even want to get on an air plane,” someone chirps in.
Finally, I’ve had enough.
“More people will die today from someone texting about Ebola on the way home from work,” I say in my most acerbic way.
Everyone looks at me like I’m either a simpleton or insensitive.
And then the reality of my statement sets in.
“You’re probably right.”
“I’m definitely right. You want a live shot that will help people? Let’s stand in front of the hospital, the children’s hospital and talk about a poor kid who is brain dead or dead-dead because they were texting and driving.”
Ebola.
Ebola isn’t going to kill anyone I know.
Lightning will kill people I know. Drowning will get a bunch of people I know. Car crashes will nail so many people, we don’t even blink nor hardly care. A fire. A gunshot. A heart attack. A dog attack. An elevator incident?
If you are alive, the likelihood is good that something is going to eventually kill you.
Ebola is just one of a million things including ticks, moose, and hair spray near a lit flame that cause you to buy the farm.
Ebola?
Yeah whatever.
I don’t have time for Ebola.
When It comes to death, you know what really scares me?
Going to bed and never waking up.
Dying in my sleep.
I want to meet death. I want to shake his damn hand and say “Hey there Mr. Death. I’ve been expecting you.”
Ebola is so new on the scene, it doesn’t even have a business card printed yet.
And you know what?
In six months, we’ll be freaking out about something else.
Ebola.
Give me a damn break.
Life’s Crazy™