Hard as it is to believe, school is starting back up again. And that can only mean one thing: flu season is right around the corner. With this year's added peril of swine flu, it's more important than ever to be vigilant. Here are a few pointers to help you keep yourself and your family flu-free this fall.
Hand-washing
It is well known that the easiest way to avoid the flu is to wash your hands regularly. But studies show that under 10% of Americans are familiar with proper hand-washing technique. To be sure your hands are actually staying germ-free, follow these steps:
- Turn the water on using the back of your hand.
- Apply soap.
- Wet your hands.
- Apply soap again.
- Wash under your fingernails.
- Rinse the soap off.
- To ensure all bacteria are fully removed, cut off your hands.
- Dry off your stumps using an air dryer--not some scummy paper towel dispenser!
Doorknobs are prime breeding grounds for the flu. Therefore, it is essential to complete the following steps to avoid the dangers they pose:
- Remove knobs from any doors you see.
- Look in the yellow pages for any stores that might sell doorknobs. If you find any, these are the types of extenuating circumstances in which arson is perfectly reasonable. (Make sure to use the type of fire that burns doorknobs, obviously.)
- If you break wind, and someone yells "doorknob," kill them immediately.
Schoolchildren
Schools are the easiest place for flu to spread. If your kids are enrolled in a school, it is recommended that you have them deported. If you see a little boy walking the streets with a schoolbag, assemble a mob to shame the boy and call him what he is: a bioterrorist.
In the event of flu
Reader Lesley writes, "Let's say I do get sick. Should I stay home?" The last thing we need in a flu epidemic is a sissy. Be a man, Lesley. And if you're a woman, get a sex change, then be a man. If you are a man, get a name change, because in the face of what could be the most devastating flu season in history, this Lesley crap ain't gonna fly.
Final thoughts
Realistically, anytime you go to work, or to school, or to the grocery store, or to the bank, you're exposing yourself to some risk of coming home with the flu. The best course of action, then, is to never go anywhere or do anything--for the rest of your life if possible, but at least for the duration of flu season.
But for a few of us, this is an impossibility. For those few, I offer that flu season is a misnomer; this is ambiguity season. By that, I mean that the uncertainty over whether you have caught the flu is far more dangerous than actually catching it. In other words, find someone with the flu and inhale their sneeze, for the last thing you want is a season-long case of anxiety. Because, to paraphrase FDR, the only thing we have to flu is flu itself.
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