“Is it too late to change my major?” 
 

The media is killing my social life. 

Here it is, the wondrous holiday season, a time for parties, shopping sprees, girls’ night out at the Melting Pot for some wild fondue and wine (and I don’t even drink), and general mixing with the crème de la crème of society. Good will toward mankind and all that, right? 

Thanks to the broadcast and print journalists locally, I’ve quarantined myself and my family instead, due to a preternatural paranoid fear of dying from the FLU OF 2003. I also just found out from a strangely resigned and mournful receptionist at my son’s pediatric office that further news of a flu vaccine shortage may end with no 2nd shot for my 22-month-old son. “The nurse is looking to find an extra resource, so check back later in the week,” the receptionist sighed. She may as well have told me, “You’re doomed, you stupid bitch! That’s what you get for letting yourself get talked out of forcing the issue back in October when you had a chance to get all the shots over and done with when there wasn’t a shortage!” 

But I blame the media anyway, for exaggerating every bit of news and gossip as if it’s the SECOND COMING of Christ, Armageddon and the end of the world in one fell, superfluous swoop. 

Everything reported is always over-the-top. Rain is not merely cold, it’s now “a wicked rainstorm of biblical proportions!” Around every corner is the latest social disease, the 21st century version of terrorism, perpetuated by an avarice-driven need to rule in the ratings, by hook, crook and marketing executives tying every children’s toy in to every other corporation selling product to the highest bidder. 

SARS and West Nile started it all. One resident succumbs to some coughing fits, and suddenly, the traveler from Hong Kong is carrying the deadly SARS virus. A cow tips over on its own, and suddenly, an autopsy reveals a mosquito on its ass filled to the brink with the deadly West Nile virus. Don’t eat at Chinese restaurants, is the subliminal message, underlying vague, half-hearted reassurances that, OF COURSE YOU CAN’T GET SARS EATING FOOD PREPARED BY POSSIBLY TAINTED HONG KONG REFUGEES (even though, Lord knows what sick shit these savages eat, wink wink). Don’t leave even a dog bowl full of water out back because soon, a swarm of killer mosquitoes will infestate and leave your carcass a bloody mass to infect every body else within a one million-mile radius, not even OFF will save you! 

Run for the hills! Hide in your room barricaded with steel walls, bullet-proof windows and live like the boy in the bubble! At least you have 24/7 cable for the infomercials and more news preemptions screaming dire threats like Chicken Little! God help us all, we’re all gonna die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Stay tuned. 

Sometimes I can almost talk myself into believing the news anchors are secretly pleasuring themselves under the counter while they spurt out the goriest of news and gossip details. They probably all had one huge collective multi-orgasm following 9/11. This flu epidemic shit’s a wet dream. “Several elderly in a nursing home have died of the flu in Spokane. Could this deadly virus hit Seattle next?! Oh! Oh! Ah... I’m coming!” 

The only voice of reason in this mess is from a known conservative heretic, Michael Savage, the shock-jock of radio who isn’t exactly a harbinger of good and accurate news and gossip in the political world. He merely suggests loading up on pure vitamin C, preferably the powdered stuff found at Trader Joe’s. And if the liberals disagree, then, according to Mr. Medicine Man, they can get two flu shots on each buttock and fuck themselves. But even Savage agrees that children at risk and young children should be vaccinated. 

Oh Lord, I’m screwed. 

“Oh! Oh! Ah... I’m coming!” 

Where the fuck were these professionals when it counted, back in September when I first read of the flu epidemic about to destroy the West Coast. Instead of listing all the places I could get the flu shots at, or the possible conflict of information that will surely confront me once I got my lazy ass to a drugstore, or what to do when the receptionist at my son’s doctor’s office doesn’t exactly help by encouraging me to go to the drugstore instead of offering a better, more accurate option of getting the shot from a nurse at that office...the articles merely state and reiterate how deadly the flu is going to be this year and already little tiny babies are dying by the boatload (if you count four as boatload). 

NOW the articles are listing resources, but it’s a little too fucking late don’t ‘ya think, dipshits? One expert quoted commented on how impossible the situation has become. To paraphrase him, You tell people to get flu shots or they’ll die, and then when they obey you, you tell them you’re out of the flu shots. WTF? 

The good news is, my husband and I have been vaccinated. In a few more days, we’ll be fully shielded from half of the symptoms of the flu viruses (that’s right, plural) out there. The most deadly, the one causing the orgasmic cries of “Epidemic!” isn’t covered completely, because it mutated after the health professionals made a vaccine out of the one last year, last year where they couldn’t even give away the flu shots. 

The bad news is, I’m scared to death that my son will get the flu regardless, because mommy was too scared to aggressively pursue giving him the two-dose flu vaccine back in October when she had a chance, because mommy was told by the media that immunizations and vaccines could possibly cause autism in children (but nobody really knows for sure except the families victimized by autism after one too many inoculations, wink, wink)... 

See how this works? 

I hope the media enjoys its millions, earned so cheaply at my expense. 

I should’ve changed my major to medicine when I had the chance.
 

Note from Katrina aka EOS Management:  I would like to encourage ALL parents NOT to automatically vaccinate their children just because someone tells you to (or because the media whips up such a hysteria that you are terrified if you don't  and terrified if you do) any more than you would perform surgery or take any other type of invasive action on an otherwise healthy child without investigating all angles thoroughly.  Read, research and learn about all arguments on all sides and then make an informed decision about the care of your child.  Don't agree to invasive procedures on your healthy child without doing your own investigating of the process.  There are pros and cons to routine childhood immunization, so please, study both sides objectively and without prejudice to either.  Work from the direction of learning what is safest and best for your child, not from serving one side of the argument or the other.  The only way to be sure you are acting responsibly is to work from a completely educated perspective, not just because you were told to do so.  You will find extremely vocal pressures for each side of the issue all over the web and of course, the general consensus all over the US is that you're just a really, really bad parent if you don't vaccinate.  Research and carefully study both sides and then decide what's best for your family.

Thanks,
Katrina