Well, cold and flu season is back, and we all know what that means: For the next few months your life will resonate the general theme of a horror movie. Allow me to elaborate.
First, the general population will become sickly and sallow. It’ll start moaning and shuffling everywhere on campus, and your paranoia of the sickly will affect your social standing as you slowly earn the reputation of “that one guy who keeps running away screaming from people.”
Next, your friends will suggest you go camping until, one by one, they contract different variations of strep throat and the West Nile Virus, leaving you to wonder if you’ll be next as you approach your darkened home and shout, “Hello? Hello? Is anybody there?”
Finally, unsettled with the state of the world around you, you’ll go to bed after a preemptive swig of NyQuil, only to realize that Freddy Krueger will be waiting in your dreams to put his dirty, unwashed hands in your mouth, giving you a horrible strain of the rhinovirus and chronic halitosis.
But the greatest concern for the student population — aside from Freddy Krueger — is grades. Students ask: How can I keep my grades up when I’ve already pretended to be sick this semester so I could go to Miami to watch Dwayne Wade juggle chainsaws at a slam-dunk contest? Most people answer this question in a sensible way: Wash your hands, take your vitamins, avoid sick people, get rest. Well to that I say: Most people are idiots. In addition to average forms of prevention, here is a list of aggressive tactics for your health:
1. Attend local gun shows.
Remember how healthy and germ-free your childhood was? Especially when your parents took you to the gun show? That’s because children aren’t allowed to touch the guns. And there’s nothing more sterile and pure than a good old fashioned .38 that some wheezy old man has picked up and drooled on. Remember how cold the gun shows were? Do you think germs can survive in that environment? You could have eaten ice cream off those guns. That’s how cold they were. In fact, some children did eat ice cream off the guns. The same one’s old men drooled on. The lesson here: If you want to boost your immune system, pick up your favorite flavor from the ice cream aisle and head to the nearest arms display.
2. Have a sick spouse? Dump him/her.
One of the biggest mistakes healthy people make is caring for the weak or sickly. Are you crazy? Why would you do that? The first thing you should do is assert your superiority by publicly announcing your physical prowess to your family in a showy and truculent manner. Rent a bullhorn, and stand outside their homes. Harass them for hours for having perpetuated inferior genes. It’s important for your own DNA to recognize its aptitude for fighting germs. Once you’ve made your point, or once the police have removed you from the property, find your spouse and, in his or her weakened state, leave him or her. Say something mean and condescending like, “Look at you.” When he or she asks why, say it’s because you couldn’t bear to produce offspring that would inherit that immune system. Or don’t explain yourself. Just squint and say, “You know what you did.”
3. Buy a chicken.
Did you know chickens are immune to the West Nile Virus? Yes, it’s true. They are. Who knows what else you can learn from them. Go buy a chicken, and convince the bird to teach you its secrets. Then when cold and flu season passes, eat it. Before you do, say, “You know what you did.”
To keep colds at bay, it’s important to remain morally ambiguous.
4. Watch Medical Dramas, or attend a Tea Party rally.
Watching one season of “House” with Hugh Laurie is enough to make anybody never want to see a doctor. Have you seen that show? People’s eyes explode. The same could be said of any event in which the Tea Party discusses universal health care, which equates to that scene in “Saw” where the captive saws his leg off. Scare yourself into health.
And that’s all there is to it. Follow those four simple steps, and for the rest of your life, you’ll look amazing with your shirt off. And you’ll never get sick. You’re welcome.
