War of the Worlds

You want to know why, if there are alien life forms, they are chomping at the bit to come to Earth? It's because we are weak, and would offer little resistance.

This has nothing to do with our military strength, or our physical attributes, or even placekickers pretending to be football players. It has everything to do with our aversion to inconvenient illnesses.

I was talking to my sister today, who may or may not have pink eye. See? I just wrote the words 'pink' and 'eye' and some of you ran from your computer monitors screaming. A few more of you probably started to build bomb shelters and withdrew all of your money from banks and invested it in cans of beans and water. And one guy for sure just went 'meh' and closed this window. Believe me, he will be dealt with. Right after I get over the sniffles.

Pink eye is contagious for sure. But it isn't deadly. It isn't really painful. It's just...inconvenient. It's a hassle. It makes us look less than glam for a short period of time. It means that we hope that nobody sees us because we look uglier than we already are. And...why do kids get sent home until it clears up?

It would be different if it was ebola. 'Jason, please stay home until your ebola is gone and/or you die, whichever comes first'. Or 'Jason, you have an unknown strain of flesh eating bacteria, and there are National Guardsmen standing on the roof of the school with standing orders to shoot you on sight until we have a note from your doctor'. Those are situations that I can understand. But pink eye? PINK EYE? Maybe if they changed the name, it'd be more understandable. Like, 'Red eye'. Or 'Black eye'. Or 'A Color That We've Never Seen But We're Pretty Sure It's The Harbringer Of Death eye'.

You know how in 'War of the Worlds' the aliens were killing us all until they contracted our diseases and then we won? That's it? The message of the whole movie is this hope that aliens are like we are? That aliens will catch a cold and just want to throw in the towel? We hope that aliens are as resistant to our diseases as we are, because that is the only way we are not going to be exterminated. And really, this is not a good battle plan. Because we call in if we wake up with a runny nose, and curl up on the sofa with a box of Kleenex and a bowl of Ice Cream while we watch Steel Magnolias.

So think about this the next time you want to call in sick because you're 'under the weather'. Are you really sick, or do you just want a day off? Would you be able to defend your family from an alien horde merely by using whatever illness you have? Could you look that alien in the eye and say 'I am more of a man than you'll ever be, unless you are a shapeshifter, and then it's a toss-up'? Probably not. Probably not. Because aliens don't have 'eyes' like we do, and by the time you figured out what the aliens eyes were, he'd have disintegrated you.

And we all lived happily ever after. The end. (I can't think of how to end this post...I was going to leave off with the disintegration remark, but that would have left a sad taste in your mouths...so I figured that if I had a more traditional end that it would make it all better).