Surviving the Swine Flu
May 31, 2010, By Ron Mattocks 1 comment
I have to admit that during the swine flu outbreak I was rather enthralled by the various precautions that were taken in reaction to this deadly virus. Maybe this is a bit morbid on my part, but having grown up in rural Pennsylvania, I’m not used to such wide-scale disruption to daily activities. About the closest thing to all the ensuing school closures, for instance, was a snow day, and believe me it would have to be cold day in the Quaker State before the principal even considered that option. So when I got the email notifying me that my stepdaughters’ school would be closing for the next several weeks as a pre-emptive measure, to me the situation seemed fairly serious. My wife, however, saw things differently.
“They’re going to make a pig’s ear out of this thing,” she said, carting a fifty-five gallon drum of hand sanitizer through the door. “This right here is all they need to start using.”
“Where’d you get that?” I asked.
“At a surplus store," she answered. "It was left over from the whole Y2K scare."
It seemed a lot, but then again, what did I know about pandemics. “Do you think it’s enough?”
"Oh, don’t worry. I got you some too, honey," she said to reassure me. “If everyone would just use a little of this stuff, the schools would probably be open tomorrow.”
Her assertion sounded logical. “I guess. Thanks for getting some for me. Where is it?” I asked.
My wife looked around as if she lost track of a stray puppy that followed her into the apartment. "Musta left it in the van," she concluded before heading off to instruct the kids on how to slather all of their exposed skin with gobs of rose-scented goo.
Her explanation told me all I needed to know. “Left in the van," is really code for, “I lost it.” Library books, umbrellas, and several pairs of sunglasses are just a few of the items that have vanished into thin air after last being seen in the vicinity of the minivan. This is what led Stephen Hawking to conduct most of his early black hole research inside of our vehicle. I could imagine some alternate universe version of myself scratching his head and thinking, “What the…” after nearly being crushed by a vat of antibacterial hand sanitizer that fell from the sky. So basically, I was out of luck as far as having my own which made me nervous given that my wife’s faith in this cure-all goo was unwavering. Later in the day I mentioned to her that I thought the school closings would be longer than two weeks.
"When a pig flies!" she replied in disgust. To her, preventative measures were the only way to go as opposed to the black helicopters zooming across the Houston skyline or the rumors that Beyoncé Knowles, Yao Ming and other H-town celebrities were locked down in a secret bunker meant for protecting the city’s local treasures.
Chalk it up to the laws of probability or my tingling spider-pig senses, but as I predicted, the girls’ school announced a third week of closures after a student there was diagnosed with swine flu.
"Oh, hogwash!" my wife said, doubting the news until reading it for herself.
At this point, as a parent, I had justifiable cause to be concerned. It is a worldwide pandemic for heaven's sake. Still, I maintain my composure enough to keep from instigating any Olivia book burnings or circulating petitions banning "The Three Little Pigs" from the cannon of fairy tales. Should Porky Pig or Miss Piggy appear on TV, I wouldn’t make it a point to change the channel.
But the opposite extreme of the issue seemed equally ridiculous to me as well, and I found it hard to condone the position taken by pig advocates. With everything going on, I’m sure there was some group like the People for the Ethical Treatment of Swine (or PETS) out there fighting for the rights of unrepresented pigs everywhere. I agree the slaughter of hogs as a fear-based reaction to the virus was a senseless act of ignorance, but to chain one's self to a large sow seemed a bit extreme in my book. Even more ludicrous to me were the reports of other organizations protesting the use of "swine" as part of the name for the virus. Really? People are dying and we’re worried about a politically correct moniker? So, we would be offended by such alternatives as “Shoat Syndrome,” “Cob Roller's Disease,” or perhaps a case of “The Piggies?” Probably, which is why the sensitivities of everyone everywhere were spared by the sterility of H1N1.
Maybe what was keeping me in check had something to do with all the summers I spent working on an honest to goodness pig farm where I had assisted in the birth of countless piglets, slung hundreds of pounds worth of slop into troughs, and once even watched a sow remove the genitalia of an overly-horny boar who mistook her for being "in season." Those experiences combined with a little Internet research told me one practically had to jam their unwashed finger up a pig’s snout in order to catch the virus. I can tell you, after witnessing the damage inflicted by that angry sow, this is something you wouldn’t exactly consider out of curiosity. However, by the melodramatic tone permeating the local news coverage one would think people engaged in such nonsense regularly. This is when it occurred to me that fear was like an evil twin brother to truth, and in all this confusion the media could not tell the two apart at the moment.
But there was another reason for me to keep my emotions in check—two actually: my stepdaughters Allie and Avery. Never in my life have I met a six- and seven-year-old whose entire existence depended on being forever in the limelight. I believe the exact term for this is “attention whore” (uh-TEN-shuhn - hoor (n): a person who sacrifices their dignity in order to gain the sole focus of an audience. Synonym(s): drama queen, diva). It’s because of this that I also refrained from telling the girls H1N1 (the virus, not the droid in Star Wars) had shut down their school. By explaining to them that their bus had forgotten to pick them up, I managed to keep them from wielding cartoon mallets against the other in a gladiator fight for the spotlight on an under-sized stage. Even so, with a deadly virus supposedly swirling around in the very halls they stroll through daily, it only took them until the second day of canceled classes to figure out what was going on. Now a Cable Ace award for best dramatic performance by a grade-schooler(s) was imminent.
That evening I heard Avery coughing loudly in her room, and I went to check on her. Approaching her bed, I stepped on a wet pool of something in the carpet.
"What the…" I demanded while inspecting the sole of my foot.
She tried to sit up, exerting a great deal of it in the process. "I had this yucky stuff in my mouth, and I had to get it out like this." Cuxxxxswit! Right on my big toe. "See! I think it’s the dreaded swine flu." Then she gasped and fainted, dropping back on the mattress.
Not wanting to be outdone, Allie burst into a sobbing fit. "Oh dear God! My sister has passed out from the pain and now your foot has been infected. Oh why is this happening to me!?"
I rolled my eyes, realizing I would now have to endure the girls’ rendition of “The Piggies” until their school announced its reopening.
Hearing her sister’s lamentations, Avery then let out a loud moan and slapped her forehead with the back of her hand. “I can see a light. Is that…heaven?”
Allie, in response, made gasping sounds as she broke out in spasms on the floor, “I have it. I have the swine flu!” she choked out.
“So… cold,” Avery said in a whisper, to which Allie added, “I’ll be with you soon dear sister.”
Oh bruuuuuuuuther! I had to get the situation under control for sanity’s sake. “Who wants some ice cream?”
Two little girls made instant and miraculous recoveries as they shot towards the kitchen. If only mint chocolate chip could bring everything into perspective so quickly.
Ron Mattocks is a father of five in Houston, Texas and the author of the book Sugar Milk: What One Dad Drinks When He Can’t Afford Vodka. He is a featured contributor to ManoftheHouse.com.
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