Grade-B SARS

"Feed a cold, starve a fever—that also applies, respectively, to Gandhi and Orson Welles."

I feel like an asshole because I think I got that SARS stuff that's going around. Only nobody else I know has it. It's possible it's not the SARS stuff, since there's not been any reported cases where I live, and that Mexican Sushi place was pretty awful and I got diarrhea the last time I ate there, too, but I'm not taking any chances.

Neither is anybody I know. Taking chances, I mean. They all wear those goofy masks when I come around, but some of them have been doing that for months. They say they don't want to give me nothing, but the way they frown when I accidentally cut cheese says more than words can say. And it sounds like a duck. That's funny. I got to write that one down. I suppose I already did.

Those masks are funny. They remind me of bank robber masks, like in the old west. You know, Billy the Kid and stuff. I bet in Hong Kong where they have lots of SARS it would be easy to rob a bank, you could just walk in wearing a mask like all the SARS people, then pull out a gun and stick up the teller. Tell her you'll give her SARS if she doesn't give you all the money, but don't get a dye pack to go with that. Those dye packs aren't as fun as they look and that's how they catch bank robbers.

Doctors wear those masks all the time. I bet that's why they give you the knock-out gas before the doctor comes in the room. The doctor walks in and you're thinking, "Great, now I'm getting robbed when I came here for surgery!" But they said the doctor doesn't come in before I'm knocked out because every time he sees the bottle sticking out of my ass he cracks up laughing. I tried to tell them I didn't know how he was going to be able to get it out while he was laughing so much, but the gas knocked me out.

Another great bank robber was Jesse James. He had a brother named Frank, but nobody's heard of him. I wonder if Jesse did all the talking and that's why we know him and not Frank. I betcha Frank was probably thinking, "Goddammit, I wish he'd let me say something. He's afraid I'll freeze up and forget the routine, or I might get nervous and blurt out where our hideout is. But he's really just wanting to hog all the history to himself."

I bet Jesse James was pulling down "wanted dead or alive" money in the neighborhood of $30 or something ('cause it was all real cheap in the old west). Frank was stuck with "bring in the head of Frank James and get a free drink of grade-B whiskey." Wow, it really sucked to be Frank James.

That would be funny if Frank James lived forever because he had that SARS mask on all the time, on account of he never did the talking, but Jesse caught SARS because he foolishly pulled the mask down to tell them about the dye packs and stuff. That would suck to be Frank James and live all those years after your brother died and then just catch SARS yourself going to Hong Kong to rob a bank.

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