The Washington Post says more than half the colleges in the U.S. now are in the throes of H1N1's torrid fury. Vanderbilt has broken the 80 person "sick with the flu" mile-marker and now needs a little cartoon pig in an apron and chef's hat to provide hand sanitizer and inform us to keep on keepin' on (eatin' our barbeque). And so I sit quietly, hands folded, ankles crossed in Fate's waiting room, because, well, if history teaches us anything, I will get the swine flu.

In the mean time, we've got the vision, now let's have some fun.

The feds have awesomely employed Elmo (for whom I have a general distaste because he seems more about being cute and less about teaching you your letters and numbers in an informative yet entertaining manner) and a guy who reminds me of Dave Winfield for some reason to tell us to wash wash wash our hands.

This is more effective than Vanderbilt's email this afternoon (a week after the Bacon Bomb, if you will, exploded), featuring this splendor:

"Ill students not in immediate crisis (no vomiting, no shortness of breath) are strongly encouraged to use the Student Health Center (routinely Monday-Friday plus Saturday morning) for their flu-related needs. Tamiflu is effective if initiated within 48 hours of the onset of symptoms.

So, one can only guess, if you're vomiting and experiencing shortness of breath, it is time to Charlie Hustle your ass over to the Emergency Room. Pretty much any description of the symptoms, though, will turn rational people into paranoid androids that I keep mistaking for mid-day alcoholics in passing before remembering you have to, like, pass through a waterfall of Purell to enter a building on campus.

HOWEVER, after my roommate returned to school in recovering from H1N1, and I happened to lay awake at 2:32am burning up, awaiting the ensuing chill, this was the situation:

So, the only thing we have to fear is swine flu. I was something more akin to angry at the swine flu, swearing like a sailor with swine flu to myself, and accentuating various turns of phrase by delivering a pointed jab to the matress with a balled up fist.

But, you know, we really ought to be a little afraid because a student with muscular distrophy (a preexisting complicating condition; others include asthsma, diabetes and heart conditions) died at University of Nebraska-Omaha this week. Nobody here that I know of has been serious ill --more like a few days of Pure, Distilled Misery (the kind you can buy in the Czech Republic) and then back out, ready to rage.

But again, you don't know. The flu could storm the beaches and overtake...Mount Rushmore?

If I was that good at making sandcastles, there is no way that's what I'd make. Really, little checkered aprons and tiny hats is the way to go when depicting a pig.