Little Legs

I didn’t think the Media could hit a new low, until it caught Swine Flu. Now, I know, it’s a commentary that’s been done (by me, by the Daily Show, by Hunter, by the Ghost of William F. Buckley), but this fake flu virus put them over the top. It was like they were watching each other and regurgitating the same bullshit about something that will never affect any of us. Ever. A thousand cases? A thousand people get eaten alive by fire ants everyday (it’s true, ask anyone). Now they’re telling us it’s leveling off. At what, nothing?

But what really concerned me about this episode was the people that took this whole thing seriously from the beginning. The people that actually took media reports at face value and became concerned. It made you think, what the fuck are people going to do when something actually goes wrong. And I started thinking, the story of the boy who cried wolf? Total bullshit. That kid could keep that act up for a few decades and Americans would still come running. We just bite again and again. Then I started thinking-

Good God! My column was just interrupted by three (three!) Jumbo Florida Cockroaches who just attacked me in a coordinated attack. Swine Flu! I’ll take that any day to what just happened. One monster (I’m talking palm width) landed right on my keyboard. Unfortunate, but not completely out of the ordinary in the Jungle South. The other two? A kamikaze attack to which I’ve never seen.

I took the first one out by sweeping it off my screen (which it obscured like the sun during a solar eclipse) and pummeling it with one of my giant shoes. It sapped my strength and I was covered in bug juice. Then I was attacked by the other two. I had to go to simple hand-to-hand. One made it to my hair, like a sneaky Seminole making it back to the scrub line, and the other flew (flew!) back into my closet.

I was at this point hyperventilating on my floor and swinging wildly at the air. They had me completely flustered. Three demon roaches hell-bent on attacking the Long Sunset Compound. I considered calling in my Google Mercenaries, they’d have a field day with this one, like bored Marines, but I relented. That’s just what these roaches wanted: an escalation in the terms of war.

The boldest roach flew out of my hair and joined the one with the most guile in my newly cleaned closet. I sat on the floor, just moments ago, catching my breath. Now I would attack. I went cart wheeling into my closet flaying my arms like a maniac, hoping only to make contact. One of them flew out of the closet to regain position, but I had em’. With my heavy Dirty Harry DVD box set in hand I caught this demon roach right on my door and unleashed a furious overhand right. Its innards exploded outward like a De Kooning painting and its skeleton stuck (twitching) to my door-frame. Like Sugar Watkins in Starship Troopers I smashed away at this roach until both myself and my copy of the Dirty Harry series was covered in brain. There was no Rico to stop me.

I swung around and faced my final opponent in the closet twitching like maniac. Time to finish the deal. But I’ve spent the past 45 minutes looking for the final roach with no luck. The bastard is buying his time in there, somewhere, waiting for me to fall asleep. It’s 6:42 AM now, and I can’t stay up much longer. He’s got me right where he wants me, and maybe that’s what they were trying to do all along. The old Rope-a-Dope cockroach attack. Joe and his Apartment never had a chance, and neither do I.

Pigs are the least of our concerns.