Follow That Bird Flu, Part 1

While the rest of the planet is worrying about the spread of the bird flu epidemic, all's quiet over on Sesame Street. This is surprising to me because usually Sesame Street and the Children's Television Workshop are not afraid to put their characters through real-life situations as learning tools for their kiddie audience (example: death of Mr. Hooper). I think it's time to get the youngest generation worried sick about bird flu and other potential plagues, and what better show than Sesame Street to deliver the message for us?

The show can tell kids about the even more dreaded Big Bird flu. It starts out with just the sniffles, but the next thing you know, you've broken out in yellow feathers. If you grow a beak and stretch out to over 8 feet tall, big bird is definitely the word. The fever that follows can make one hallucinate that they have imaginary hairy elephant friends, who later on turn into real-life friends. Freaky shit.

Kids will naturally ask their parents about Big Bird flu, and then parents can do one of two things: A) Spill the beans about the actual bird flu epidemic and be open about any and all diseases and effects; or B) Lie and say the only way to avoid Big Bird flu is to brush your teeth, clean up your room, eat your vegetables, take baths and do all the shit that they never seem to want to do without parental intervention. Most parents will probably go with Plan B.

If Big Bird flu is not enough, it's up to Sesame Street to bring many more muppet strains of diseases and ailments to the forefront. You can start out by telling them about Barkley's Bad Case of Worms, Buster the Horse's Hoof and Mouth Disease, and even worse, Gladys' Mad Cow Disease. If that doesn't get their little hearts beating a little faster, I doubt they'll still be singing "Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street" after hearing about the following:

Mammoth Morbid Obesity - This is 100 times worse than morbid obesity because the sheer size of the victim can swell to over 3,000 pounds. It is not uncommon for him to have unsightly, scraggly body hair and sometimes dental hygiene can spiral out of control with the growth of tusks. The victim breathes heavily and can't seem to speak a sentence without the words "Gee, bird" in it. Strangely, the biggest cause of death is not complications from diabetes, heart disease or other disorders of the heavy-set, but rather walking into tar pits and becoming hopelessly trapped, then suffocating after sinking below the bubbly black surface.

Cookie Monster Bulimia - Tragically, this is not an intentional eating disorder, but rather is the act of eating cookies so fast that it makes one toss his cookies. Just the sight of a cookie sends the Cookie Monster into a psychotic feeding frenzy where he turns his tonsils into a punching bag, pulverizing the cookie(s) into crumby shrapnel by cramming them into his mouth repeatedly without chewing.

PBS spokesmen have said Cookie Monster has turned over a new leaf and is not as crazy about cookies any longer. Give me a break. His name is Cookie Monster, and he ain't gonna be singing "C is for celery." Don't buy any bullshit that he's in a 12-step program called Cookies Anonymous, either.

"Me eat healthy foods because cookies are only a sometimes food," Cookie Monster would lie to the camera before breaking down. "Oh, who me kidding? Me not vitamin C monster. Me get cookie bouquets from fans all the time. Me have 10-pack-a-day habit that includes Oreos, Chips A'hoy, and Mrs. Fields. Cooooooookiiieeeeeeeee!!! Mmmunchmmmunchh!"

Oscar the Grouch Dysentery - This sad disease evolves when you not only live in your own filth, but in the filth of others. Like Oscar, the worst cases actually live in trash cans, and are against recycling programs of any sort. They are the cliff divers of dumpster diving. They accept any type of garbage to be thrown at or on them, including dangerous household cleaners and animal carci. Hair eventually becomes green and matted, but the victims are usually busy making up lyrics and then singing delusional songs about how happy they are to be living in such a dump (example: I Love Trash!).

Count OCD - Even vampires with obsessive compulsive disorder crave counting more than sucking blood out of victims or turning into a bat. They may start out counting to 10 or 12 to show off, but eventually it escalates to 20. Once that is mastered, counting becomes an obsession, counting everything and anything, driving all of those around them to put in earplugs, or in more severe cases, drive a wooden stake through his muppet heart to shut his purple ass up. Typically finishes any counting with a slow, methodical laugh. The Count almost died when he tried to keep up with counting how many stockholder dollars were lost during the Enron scandal.

Bert Beastiality - A constant case of jaundice is the least of our unibrowed friend's worries. When he started going "birding" without binoculars, this was the first sign of trouble. I guess one can become pretty sexually "confused" when you have some puppeteer's hand up your ass for your whole life. It might not even be Bert's fault - he may be guided by that unseen hand. Eventually the disturbingly fowl behavior was accepted by Bert, who was so overcome with denial at first, he made up a song - "Doin' the Pigeon" - to try and masquerade that the act was innocently about dancing like a bird, not deviant dirty dancing. Once he tires of pigeons, new song and dance numbers will follow, possibly including "Chokin the Chicken", "Rockin the Robin", "Poppin' the Penguin", and "Bangin the Blue-Footed Booby."

Ernie Rubber Duckie Allergy - The good news is Ernie is not allergic to condoms. The bad news is, this is an allergy to solely the latex used to make rubber duckies, by far Ernie's favorite tub toy and song subject matter. It was difficult to detect at first because it causes the skin to look wrinkly like a raisin, much like one would look after soaking in the tub for a long period of time. Prolonged exposure to the latex is not fatal, but it can cause one's laugh to be reduced to a spitty gurgle.

Grover Vertigo - This terrible dizziness disorder all starts with a demonstration of far and near. If the running back and forth isn't enough to cause extreme exhaustion, the yo-yo effect of it all takes its toll on the optic nerve and creates light-headedness, nausea and sometimes hysteria. This can also happen to muppets in the service industry - like Grover the waiter - who are too dense and high-strung to realize that the fly in the diner's soup is not an actual insect, but the diner is simply showing off his spelling abilities with alphabet soup. By the time Grover finally realizes this, he faints from utter exhaustion.

Telly-phone Sex Addiction - This is the affliction of being obsessed with muppet phone sex lines with a twist. "Telly-phone" addicts typically make their calls in the dark and just want to hear monsters heavy breathing. They long to be frightened into an orgasm. Hardcore addicts usually only have their freakiest fantasies satisfied by requesting a few toots from the Honkers.

This post was brought to you by the number 4 and the letter Q. 4Q. Get it? Stay tuned for Part 2, coming soon.