A Calming Little FAQ on the Current Pandemic Panic

We've all seen the headlines:

W.H.O. Raises Alert Level as Flu Spreads to 74 Countries

More City Schools Closed by Flu

Everybody in Japan Ordered to Wear Stupid White Medical Masks

We're All Going To Fucking Die

And what is everybody so worked up about? Is it a plague transmitted by rats, like the Black Death? Is it a virus that can chew your skin off, like Ebola? Is it a disease that can actually kill you, like Swine Flu? Hell no. It's a sickness that, tragically, has the potential of infecting 100% of the marriageable female population of the planet. You know what I'm talking about, ladies. I'm talking about Swain Flu. The dirty little secret of the double-X chromosome. (And you guys reading this? Double-X is not a size, so take a cold shower, okay?)

So what is Swain Flu? Here, for the willfully ignorant, is a brief FAQ:

QUESTION: So what is Swain Flu?

ANSWER: Swain Flu is a recurring virus which makes it impossible for women to live without a boyfriend in their lives. Women infected with Swain Flu are sometimes referred to as Serial Daters, Clinging Vines, Chain Locas (because they're so crazy they date guys the way chain smokers light their next cigarette: from the butt of the one they're just about to stub out), and the incredibly uncomplimentary Chick Ticks, because of their habit of hopping from lover to lover like a carnal flea.

QUESTION: How big is the current Swain Flu outbreak?

ANSWER: Swain Flu was declared a global pandemic on June 11, 2009, in the first designation by the World Honeymoon Organization of a worldwide romantic pandemic since the death of Barbara Cartland. Although the virus is now widespread in the United States and continues to spread from one woman to another through texting and Facebook updates, the W.H.O. has recommended against attempts to contain it, arguing that it would piss off all the men who are currently getting a lot of frantic sex because of it.

QUESTION: So what are the signs and symptoms of Swain Flu in women?

ANSWER: The symptoms of swain flu are: the inability to sleep without someone next to you in bed, dizziness when more than arm's length away from anything with a Y chromosome, fainting spells when faced with the prospect of seeing a movie alone, and advanced malnutrition due to lack of spooning. And, for that matter, forking. Also low self-esteem and an unbridled passion for shorter and more revealing LBD's*, and higher and more painfully constricting FMP’s**, which is reflected in the old jump rope rhyme:

One is my LBD
Two are my FMP’s
Three are the G & T’s
He has to drink till he’s on his knees.
Pepper pepper pepper pepper Vodka!

QUESTION: Is Swain Flu some kind of new disease?

ANSWER: God no. It's been around since the invention of courtly love by Marie de Champagne in 1099. Troubadours sang of it, Provençal poets rhymed about it, jongleurs made fun of it, and (like everything else in the Middle Ages) the Jews were blamed for it. Outbreaks of Swain Flu have been happening for centuries: there was the Amoroso Ague affliction in Italy during the reign of the Borgias, the Caballero Cholera complaint in El Cid’s Andalusia, the Gigolo Grippe which went up and down the East Coast of America during the first Grover Cleveland Administration, the famous Beau Brummell Bronchitis blight in Regency England, and the well-documented 1939 outbreak of Sugar Daddy Shingles in Hollywood. Social historians are in agreement that these recurring appearances of Swain Flu in the human female population always occur during hard economic times, and point out that the most recent pandemic took place during The First Great Depression, an event which was immortalized in Edna St. Vincent Malaysia's famous poem, What Lips My Lips Aren't Kissing Now, And Why The Hell Not, Huh?:

I cannot walk without a crutch
Or reach without an arm to touch
Or sleep without a second crotch
Beside me in the bed.

If I'm alone for half a sec,
I turn into a nervous wreck.
Without a man to (rhymes with duck)
I might as well be dead.

QUESTION: So can women contract Swain Flu, or can guys get it as well?

ANSWER: There are strains of Swain Flu which do intermittently infect the heterosexual male population; these are usually referred to as Jane Flu. But since current research has proven that most straight males go through their lives with a near-total 24/7 inability to be alone for more than five minutes at a time, unless there's a TV on in front of them, the toxins at the root of the Swain Flu virus appear to be already inherent in the straight male biological makeup. (Which, unfortunately, is the only kind of makeup ever associated with straight males.) This is probably why the accepted scientific term to describe a heterosexual male who cannot exist without a woman in his life is "Being Awake."

QUESTION: Are there medicines to treat Swain Flu?

ANSWER: You’re kidding, right?

QUESTION: Well, there’s got to be something I can do if I get it.

ANSWER: Look -- it’s like heroin withdrawal. The only way to clean yourself out is to go cold turkey. Sleep alone. Stay home and eat ice cream. When you meet new guys, tell them you're seeing someone. Tell them you're married. (No--wait--that only encourages them.) You have to flush this insidious crippler of women out of your system completely. And while you are, you'll be feeling all the symptoms of drug withdrawal, which are coincidentally the exact same symptoms of Swain Flu: fever, chills, shortness of breath, increased heart rate, fatigue, giddiness, sadness, the shakes, the giggles, the shing-a-ling, the skate, the boogaloo, the philly, and the ability to read Ernest Hemingway without laughing. You may also notice the inability to wake up, lack of desire to interact socially, mental confusion, fatigue, and constant irritability as well, but these symptoms are harder to trace to Swain Flu, since they are common to everyone who works a day job.

QUESTION: And what if I don't want to be cured? What if I like swimming in a constant stream of meaningless hookups just so I won't feel lonely?

ANSWER: Then I have only one thing to say to you.

QUESTION: Yes?

ANSWER: What are you doing tomorrow night?


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*LBD: Little Black Dress.

**FMP's: Fuck-Me Pumps. Immortalized in Edna St Vincent Malaysia's famous poem, I Didn't Wear This Dress So You Could Look At My Face, Romeo:

I'm wearing shiny FMP's.
They make my calves as hard as trees.
Say something complimentary, please --
Your silence kind of rankles.

I'm not a slouch -- I came to play.
I'm wearing sexy lingerie.
It's even sexier, they say,
When it's around my ankles.