Millions of Americans who suffer each and every day from what they euphemistically call the "wine flu" have found refuge in identifying their affliction as the "swine flu" to family, friends, and co-workers.
The swine flu, which originated in Mexico, is a respiratory illness affecting pigs that recently began infecting humans and has caused panic across the globe. "Really, it's just a matter of adding an "s" to the beginning of "wine flu" and that doesn't feel so deceitful. For me, it works," said Serena Miller an aspiring Broadway songstress who has been frittering away her time in New York City (and Daddy's credit limit) by drinking fancy bottles of Cabernet at hipster dinner parties in SoHo. "When I wake up to find I've missed yet another audition because I was arguing in a wine-soaked haze about Hegelian dialectic until three in the morning, saying I'm suffering from the swine flu goes over a lot easier. It makes the calls with Mom and Dad a piece of cake. The swine flu is a global pandemic, whereas the wine flu is only contracted by entitled, upper-middle-class blowhards who think they have a touch of genius about them. It's not a hard choice."
Frank Catellenti agrees. The hard charging Wall Street securities broker has spent the last three years plagued by daily bouts of the wine flu after his affair with a 24-year old co-worker was exposed and his wife and three children moved out. "It used to be, I'd nervously snicker about "a case of the wine flu" to my boss when he found me slumped at my desk with that glazed, hungover look. But this morning I sent my secretary an email saying I was staying home with the swine flu and I've been inundated with cards and flowers all morning. I've never been better!" he chimed as he cracked into a bottle of Clos du Val 2004 Reserve even though the clock read 10:35 AM. "This descent into mid-life alcoholic stupor is going to be painful and wrenching, but it's going to be a hell of a lot more pleasant passing it off as the swine flu."
Those referring to their wine flu as swine flu have two basic tips. Keep your communications about your illness short and don't make yourself available for discussion. Miles Flemming, a handbag designer and general bon vivant recently "tweeted" that he had swine flu to his Twitter network and wouldn't be available for 2-3 days, or more accurately, until The Sex and The City marathon on TBS concluded. Almost instantly, he was deluged with sympathetic responses and questions about the symptoms. "It was like 'ease off everyone!!' If I really had an exotic, highly transmissible disease would I chat about it online for hours on end? All I said was that I had the swine flu, let's just leave it at that." Flemming admitted that he can understand his friends' curiosity and prying questions however. "Everyone's spooked that they might have the swine flu themselves...and if you put back a magnum of rosé before dinner at Morimoto like I did last night, the answer might just be "yes."
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