MR WRONG: It’s Cold & Flu Season 2025
Indignity Vol. 5, No. 6
COLUMN DEP’T.
MR WRONG: Go Wash Your Hands Means Go Wash Your Hands
HEY EVERYBODY, IT’S Cold & Flu Season 2025, go wash your hands.
That’s it, that’s the whole column. All the rest is just to hit word count so I can say I filed a column this week. Always Be Columning! Seriously, you can skip down to the Weather Review. I would like to get action in Vegas on if there’s a bird-mention in each day’s report, and other animal mentions, but the bird-mention would be one you could establish a line on, like, how many birds today? One? Three? I’m gonna go blind-in today and say zero birds. If I could, I would bet somebody a dollar on that, no birds mentioned in today’s Weather!
Anyway, if you’re still with me, also, Always Be Washing your hands! Look at the supporting graphics we prepared! It’s Cold & Flu Season! Right now! Cold-Ampersand-Flu! Season! More-also, it’s Everything Else Season, all the time! Par exemple, there’s goddamn Norovirus! Holy shit, I thought Norovirus was what people got from being stupid enough to go on a Carnival Cruise boat or whatever-cruise boat, but it is found everywhere, the Norovirus, not just in giant tubs full of dum-dums, it’s a landlubber virus as well, so guess what, say No to Norovirus! Guard against a violent attack of sick poops! Go wash your fuckin’ hands!
About Norovirus
Norovirus is the leading cause of vomiting and diarrhea, and foodborne illness in the United States.
People of all ages can get infected and sick with norovirus.
Proper handwashing and other simple steps can help prevent getting and spreading norovirus.
Emphasis mine! Proper handwashing, fuckos! Not proper hand-sanitize-squirting! That shit doesn’t help! Your hands must be clean of filth, not smeared with filth marinated in scent and alcohol! You have to rub the goddamn pestilence off your mitts with heat and vigor! Surfactants! The public restrooms nearly all have liquid soap now, but even a slick, icky, wet bar of soap previously used by a stranger, and some hot water, and some brisk scrubbing is better than that fucking hand-sanitizer goop for proper prophylaxis against Norovirus!
How to Prevent Norovirus
Norovirus is very contagious, but you can take steps to stop it from spreading.
Wash hands well with soap and water; hand sanitizer alone does not work well against norovirus.
Do not prepare, handle food, or care for others when you are sick.
Do I have to remind you that there are still people in this country who go to the bathroom and do poops and peeps and then stroll out without washing their filthy meathooks?!? Defend yourself from picking up whatever creeping crud they are spreading on public surfaces! Go wash your hands!
Wash your fucking hands! There is the rhinovirus, d/b/a the Common Cold! Nobody wants this!
In addition to flu viruses, several other respiratory viruses also spread during flu season and can cause symptoms similar to those seen with flu infection. These respiratory viruses include rhinovirus (one cause of the "common cold"), the virus that causes COVID-19, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which is the most common cause of severe respiratory illness in young children as well as a leading cause of death from respiratory illness in those aged 65 years and older. Other commonly circulating respiratory viruses include human parainfluenza viruses (HPIV), human metapneumovirus (HMPV), respiratory adenoviruses, and human coronavirus. More information about non-influenza respiratory viruses is available.
I want you to listen to me. I do not want you to contract a Human Metapneumovirus. I did not even know there was such a thing as a Human Metapneumovirus. You need to scrub your hands like there is something on your hands that hates your guts and wants to kill you. It wants to choke you out from the inside, shut your lungs down and deprive you of oxygen. Death. During Cold & Flu Season there will be Sickness and Death on your hands. You don’t know when, it could be after you go make groceries at the supermarket and handle a buncha stuff and then come home and not wash your goddamn hands!
There are Things out there! They want to make you puke and shit uncontrollably. Diarrhea! Dire Straits! You must fight! It’s in your own best interests to go and wash your hands right now! Plus, if you wash your hands, then you are tamping down the spread of all the pestilence and that helps me! Help me to help you to help me!
The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly. No refunds. Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, January 8, 2025
★★★ Each stop on the quick trip out to the trash cans in a t-shirt felt like incipient disaster. An archipelago of hardened irregular snow patches stretched along the sidewalk by the curb. Indoors again, a stubborn layer of cold air lurked by the floor. The midday light was hard and glittering. The cold soaked right through the jeans; leaves scraped along loudly. The shaded chill of a cross street seemed like the nadir of conditions till the wind came slashing around the corner from Broadway to make things worse. Gloves merely separated the fingers from one another's protective warmth. The cafe clerk asked if the croissant should be warmed up. Why not give it a chance? By the time the pastry made it home in its paper sack, the apricot filling was room temperature. Still, that was warmer than it might have been.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
HERE IS TODAY'S Indignity Morning Podcast.
Tom Scocca
Click on this box to find the Indignity Morning Podcast archive.
TOM SCOCCA
ADVICE DEP'T.
GOT SOMETHING YOU need to justify to yourself, or to the world at large? Other columnists are here to judge you, but The Sophist is here to tell you why you’re right. Direct your questions to The Sophist, at indignity@indignity.net, and get the answers you want.
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of sandwiches selected from Institution Recipes For Use In Schools, Colleges, Hospitals And Other Institutions, by Emma Smedley, Director of Public School Luncheons, Philadelphia, Pa.; Formerly Instructor in Domestic Science, Drexel Institute, Philadelphia, Pa.; Instructor in Dietetics, The Johns Hopkins Hospital Training School for Nurses, Baltimore, Md, published in 1919 and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
Egg Sandwiches II
(50 Sandwiches)
2 dozen hard-cooked eggs
3/4 pound butter
2 teaspoons salt
Cayenne
6 ounces butter
100 slices bread
Put the eggs through food chopper and add softened butter and seasoning. Spread mixture between slices of buttered bread.
Calories in recipe 1,552 protein, 12,134 total
Calories in one sandwich: 31 protein, 243 total
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
