Every Halloween Jameelah tries to drag me to do something scary. Last year, it was a haunted maze, where actors dressed as serial killers ran at us with chainsaws while strobe lights flashed in the background. It was really frightening — that we paid $25 each and waited for an hour in line. “You’re no fun,” she complained. “Don’t you ever like being scared once in a while?”
Like being scared? Why would anyone like that? Has society reached a point where we must manufacture fear in order to entertain ourselves? I say, if you’re not scared about what’s out there, then you’re not paying attention:
Office mugs: One in five of them contain fecal bacteria and/or E. Coli. That’s right, fecal bacteria! Apparently, about 60 percent of men and 40 percent of women don’t wash their hands after using the toilet. Luckily, most of the germs are probably scalded to death by hot coffee. Still, fecal bacteria!
Desks and keyboards: Computer keyboards have over 60 times more bacteria than most toilets, while desks contain 400 times more bacteria than toilets. Your desk has 21,000 germs per square inch. A toilet, about 49.
Multivitamins: Some studies say they’re good for your health. Others say they may shorten your lifespan. If you don’t take them, you may lack nutrients you need. But if you take them, you might get cancer. However, chances are very low that they’ll harm you. But they could kill you.
Ball-point pens: On average, 100 people choke to death on them each year.
Brain cells: We lose on average 85,000 brain cells a day, while regenerating only 50 or so.
Red coloring: If you see “cochineal extract” or “carmine” as an ingredient on a bottle of your favorite juice, then you’re drinking powdered insect shells. What kind of a scary, sick world do we live in where we use insects to color fruit juices?
Michele Bachmann: Sure, she’s running behind right now, but politics is so unpredictable. She may just vault ahead of “The Black Walnut” Herman Cain and assume the presidency, and the ground will open, unleashing the Four Horsemen and ushering in an age of darkness and despair.
Literally: So many idiots are using it incorrectly that it might lead to a changing of its definition, because English is a living language, meaning it changes all the time! Eeek! If this happens, it will literally make my head explode.
Greece: If it fails to address its fiscal problems, it could destabilize the Euro, setting off another global economic crisis, worsening the current economic conditions, leading to a complete collapse of everything, increasing the likelihood of famines, wars, and pestilences. And terrible hummus, falafel, and dolmades.
Dust mites: Your bed mattress has 100,000 to ten million tiny insects that live on the dead skin cells you shed every day. Females lay about 80 eggs in their lifetime. In other words, while you’re feeling all comfy and snuggly, millions of six-legged bugs are feeding, going to the bathroom, mating, and hatching out of eggs and entering your lungs. You’re probably inhaling hundreds of them right now!
That’s just the short list. Other things that should keep you up at night are: global warming, our failing education system, sponges, obesity, unemployment, North Korea, solipsism, the expanding universe, the unraveling of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity thanks to the discover of neutrinos that could travel faster than the speed of light, Google+ not catching on, bunnies, bird flu, plastic bottles, Saturday Night Live continuing to run for years despite being painfully unfunny, salmonella, and paper cuts.
So skip paying the $25 and just stay home and surf the internet if you need an adrenaline rush. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to work on my dust mite costume.
Look, an easy-to-remember website: www.Jaggednoodles.com.
