funny...you don't LOOK flu-ish

A few potentially psychotic and disdain-inducing health-related questions for my clever, clever friends:

1) Alright...so tell me true: Is the flu utter and complete horseshit -- or does it truly exist?

2) What the fuck IS the flu? What are its symptoms and have you ever had it? How bad was it? How bad can it actually be?

3) How do you get the flu, prevent the flu, and are there, in fact, different strains and strengths of the flu -- as in, "Oh, maybe you've just got a little flu virus?" Is it even possible to have a "LITTLE flu virus"?

4) When all these people say they have the flu -- do they really and truly have the flu or are they just confused and/or misinformed and/or overreacting and/or full of shit and/or just trying to get out of work so they can stay home in their jammies, eat Pop Tarts, watch The Banana Splits, play World of Warcraft, and jerk off?

5) Did all those goddamned people really and truly die in 1918 from something that I scarcely believe even exists? Is it really that fucking bad? And further, with all the advancements in medicine and technology, and all the hygiene standards and practices we have in place today, could a flu epidemic of that magnitude still really happen in 2010?

This might all sound completely insane, so I am imploring you to please remember that it is coming from a place of delirious illness, ignorance, impatience, idiocy, intolerance, ire, AND frustration, mein poppets. I am one of those people who just simply does NOT get sick -- or to be more specific, who does not get sick with the flu or common cold. It just doesn't happen -- and yet, here I sit, mired in my very own fever, chills, malaise, and tummy trauma. OFF TRACK.

You see, when I get sick, it tends to be a major, chronic, rare, incurable, debilitating, life-altering piece-of-shit sort of disease that involves daily needles, high profile medical specialists, and Vocal Reverberation Under Spinal Pressure (you know, V.R.U.S.P?) It is simply incomprehensible to me that I might be felled by something as ordinary as the fucking flu; I am used to much fiercer, more formidable opponents than this, goddamnit.

So, yes, this little tantrum I'm throwing could very well be yet another manifestation of my self-delusional and perpetually Magical Thinking, but I find myself just utterly gobsmacked to be taken down by something as...common...as a common cold or flu -- because although I feel like complete feces at the moment, the gods usually kick my fatass FAR harder and WAY farther across the Universe than this.

Whatever.

BRING IT.