report released Friday disclosed that savage viruses that shred most human flesh and destroy normal mortal bodies will not even mess with people on American soil. The study, researched at Bolchek University in Ames, Iowa, and financed by the American Family First organization, had been going on for more than five weeks when it made its findings public in Friday's press release.

The news comes as a great relief to weary earth-dwellers in the United States, as word came of a deadly Ebola-like virus continuing its rampage through Angola, some country most Americans aren't familiar with in Africa. The World Health Organization (WHO, sometimes known as the Teenage Wasteland Group) announced shortly before the Bolchek press release that 173 people in Angola have died from the virus known as Marburg, and four more non-U.S. countries have been placed on the warning list.

News media assured American citizens the country will be alright, since they have something of a track record for surviving problems without U.S. intervention, and have even survived some caused by them.

The Bolchek study findings, however, provided a large relief from worry about viral invasions by other dangerous contagions such as Marberg and Ebola, including CCHF, Dengue, SARS, Lassa fever, and the Kinks. According to research, done in Bolchek's famous $3 million Sid Caesar Facility, virus cells, when given the choice between healthy cells of different nationalities, will always shy away from American DNA.

"It's totally awesome," said project head, 18-year-old super-genius Nills Van Raftan. "We stumbled on it a bit by accident. We were testing the effect of Ebola on the blood cells of African mice—since we wanted to save the American mice for better experiments—when one of the team members had a nosebleed and accidentally contaminated the sample. Imagine our surprise when we saw the Ebola contagions were scared shitless of messing with the American cells. And who can blame 'em?"

If the results are verified, and frankly nobody's doubting the outcome of a second test much, it answers a great number of questions for the world's nerdy virus-following community. Such as why have SARS and Mad Cow and other disease variants been too chickenshit to mess with the U.S. of A.?

"For any number of reasons," posited spindly weakling Van Raftan, "virus cells simply will not infect American cells, at least those of the United States. It could be because U.S. cells don't brook backtalk from foreign viruses. But, if my personification of American cells is way off, it might also be because viruses know that if they mess with American cells, they're risking a massive investment of money in destroying their asses. They can work their way through Africa, Asia, and even Eastern Europe for years, and we'll leave them alone—but first time they start infecting Americans on American soil, they're on our list. Companies even drop all the new dick pill technology they're working on and concentrate on the hot new market for pharmaceuticals to keep Americans healthier than foreigners."

When asked about AIDS, a virus long plaguing even American citizens, Van Raftan made a squeal, smiled sheepishly with his braces on display, and shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe some viruses are retarded. But it does give us something to work on when we get frustrated with erection research."

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I hate to sound like a party pooper, or even worse, like I've grown cynical, but I have to admit that this year will be known for me as the year I stopped believing in Santa Claus.

It wasn't any one particular thing, just a series of things that built up until I said, "You know what? I'm fed up. Every year I keep asking for stuff I never get and there's too much proof. There is no Santa Claus."

Kids line up around the block to sit on my lap and tell me what they want for Christmas. And this isn't any one place, it's every town and every city everywhere all over the world. How is Santa supposed to be in all those places at once, you tell me that? It's just physically impossible. Some of them don't even look like me, they'll be Asian guys or black guys or occasionally a woman or something. Nothing wrong with that, of course, I just think it's obvious most of them—oh, let's face it, all of them—are guys in suits pretending to be me. Well, there goes Christmas, kids. You just told some minimum wage former stockboy what you want for Christmas. That helps.

This thing about the flying reindeer, too, it's complete baloney. Reindeer? Flying? Now if the story was that Santa had magical kid-loving dragons whose back he rode on, that would be pretty cool and believable. But you can see reindeer anywhere. Go ahead, push one off a roof, tie one to the back of your Cadillac and pull it five hundred yards at 60 mph, of all the things it will do it won't fly. If there's ever a time to go ahead and fly, that would be it, and they don't.

Who makes all these friggin' toys, too? Sure, in the days of the wooden rocking horse and the worthless rag doll with buttons for eyes, I could see that being the product of some elfin workforce laboring away in freezing conditions, but what about these cell phones, Playstation 2 consoles, Casio keyboards, and computers these kids are getting these days? Forget the difficulty in building toys that require high-tech skill, let's just ask about Star Wars figures or Pokemon cards or something. Not that elves couldn't make that stuff, but they'd be in violation of serious international copyright laws. You're talking about one bad-ass criminal St. Nick there.

He must be trained in some shady business to infiltrate houses all over the world. How many houses have chimneys these days? Santa's out there squeezing down air ventilation pipes, under locked doors, through keyholes, through sealed windows, all sorts of unimaginable stuff. Forget laughing with a "Ho, ho, ho," the Santa they're talking about must be a scary Eugene Tooms X-Files motherfucker.

And how many kids throughout the world? How many houses, how many presents? One guy doing all this stuff in one night? Even including time zones and expanding it out to a full 24 hours to get all this done, one guy, I don't care how mystical his ass is, will be finishing that job. Forget it. Not in one year, certainly not in one day.

I'm not even leaving the house this Christmas. It's too confounding to think about. I'll probably just stay in with Mrs. Claus, sit around the fireplace and lick candycanes, maybe watch that Charlie Brown Christmas special on DVD or something, catch It's A Wonderful Life if it's even playing and just take it easy this year. Get a good night's sleep for once and check out the Day After Christmas sales if I get up early enough on the 26th. The only person I'm going to be asking for anything from is Mrs. Claus. If Santa can do all this other amazing crap he can read minds as well, so maybe he'll bring me that Palm V I've been eyeing in the Office Depot newspaper supplements. But he probably won't be happy because all I'm thinking this year is there is no Santa Claus, sorry if that pisses off the time-bending B&E reindeer pilot himself.

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Dear commune:

Aren’t you just tired of all this bullshit?

Reggie Shaw
Dove Plains, GA


Dear Reggie:

We know exactly what you’re talking about. Those fussy pricks downstairs at Crochet! magazine need to be put in their goddamned place. First they have the gall to involve the police in our staff’s hallowed Annual Pogo Stick Race semifinals. We here at the commune may be a passionate bunch, given to boisterous arguments and cataclysmic displays of machismo, but we’ve never been unable to resolve our own pogo race photo finish disputes among ourselves. Sure, small-arms fire is sometimes involved, but cooler heads and Russian Roulette always prevail.

And speaking of meddling, who are they to say who can and who can’t keep livestock in the building’s common areas? They automatically assume it’s the commune’s goats that have been shitting in the elevator. As if their staff is above suspicion. The pricks.

Anyway, thanks for understanding. Sometimes the commune just needs to vent.

the commune

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Editor’s Note: the commune is not responsible for those embarrassing Capri pants all the girls are wearing these days. We’re guessing a sauna mishap was responsible for those ridiculous things. But we do look forward to making snide remarks when we’re looking at photo albums ten years from now, just for the record.

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