Oh...Is The Flu Going Around?

    Okay, honestly, I do have a flair for drama. I love a good "all-hands-on-deck-the-world-is-ending" news story that gets everyone from here to eternity riled up and running for the nearest airport to flee. It somehow makes me feel connected to the human spirit to know that we are all going down at the same time and nothing anyone does will save us. (Cue dramatic Zero Dark Thirty-esque music). Read, since I am a Manhattan-centric arrogant brat, New-Yorkers-Bond-Over-Hurricane-Sandy.
     Now that I've gotten that dramatic intro under way, I can comfortably make the point I came here to make. I think by now, it's safe to say that we all know people are, like, getting the flu. Yeah, some people in my office are coughing and all and others are proudly displaying their self-proclaimed "immune-system-repairing" remedies on their desks as if on display in the MOMA. Okay, yes, I get it...people are under the weather.
     This morning while running on the treadmill (undoubtedly coated in a layer of toxic flu germs), I watched The Today Show cut to an emergency segment "The Growing Epidemic" detailing the emergency situation at hand.  "Everyone take precaution. Touch nothing and no one," they voiced over  while a map flashed across the screen with that threatening red "flu" coating spreading across the states whilst I tranquilly clocked miles on the treadmill. Hmmm. Maybe I should get a mask so I'm not breathing in this very public air? Virtual internal slap across the face...get a grip Rachel! I am sorry but this is the FLU we are talking about, people, not the bubonic plague. Not Ebola...(I don't think?).
     Not to don my hypocrite hat for the third post in a month, however even though I do enjoy a good drama-inducing news story every now and again (as previously mentioned), let's just all take a step back here people. It's 2013. And it's the flu. Stock up on Robitussin and Emergen-C (I heart Pfizer), skip the gym for a few days, and become one with your DVR. If we did it when we were six, we can certainly do so now. Being sick absolutely sucks and there is no way around it, but this nonsense has got to stop. No more maps with spreading red virus stats, please, and enough with the threatening surgical masks on the subway, folks. It's winter and you, like all humans, just might get sick. Deal with it.