Season of dread

Less than a month until summer officially begins – the weather’s warm, people are going on picnics, life seems to be slowing down. It’s getting to be that time of year when we in the news media helpfully inform you about the random things that you never realized ARE GOING TO KILL YOU!\nGranted, we tell you about a lot of things that ARE GOING TO KILL YOU – bird flu, terrorism, fast food, etc. – but with that tramp mother nature luring people outside, away from their televisions and computers, seducing them with things like swimming pools (which are non-newsprint-compatible, by the way), we have to crank things up a notch. Thus, I consulted a couple of the most sensible and trusted sources on the Internet – Fark.com and The Drudge Report – and rounded up some stories that should, hopefully, help you avoid some unspeakable perils that you’ve probably never even thought about.\n“Is your hot tub a stew for deadly bacteria?” (CBS 2, May 18).\nAccording to Los Angeles local network affiliate CBS2, a woman caught a rare case of Legionnaires’ disease from an unclean hot tub. Let this be a lesson to you all: do not let legionnaires in your hot tub! And for those who followed the notorious Indiana Daily Student/Phi Psi hot tub controversy of Fall 2006, know this: since their hot tub turned out to be fictional, any rashes on their swimsuit areas must come from other sources.\n“Isabodywear underwear fends off cellphone radiation,” (Engadget, May 20).\nWell, okay, this is less a threat to one’s life than to guys’ wee lil’ swimmers – but, hey, it’s still something to worry about. A Swiss clothing firm not only claims that its silver-threaded underwear keeps the rads off your nads, but “suggests that phone calls originated within the confines of your new underwear simply won’t connect.” Because who among us hasn’t worried that their testes were eating up their cell phone minutes? If you’re seriously considering buying this product, cell phone-induced sterility probably isn’t what’s preventing you from breeding.\n“Plague monkey dies in US zoo,” (Reuters, May 22).\nA monkey at the Denver Zoo died from eating a squirrel infected with bubonic plague. Now, the idea that squirrels can be infected with the Black Death is unnerving, but not that surprising – they are rodents, after all, and the plague travels via the fleas that feed on rodents. But who knew that monkeys eat squirrels? Dear God, do you realize how many squirrels we have around here? How long until they attract an invasion of squirrel-eating primates? (And, no, I don’t mean Kentuckians.)\nWith all these threats out there, what can you do to prolong your time on this spinning mud-ball? A May 21 China Daily article linked to Fark profiles centenarian Zhang Shuqing, who credits his long life to “smoking every day and drinking liquor after every meal.” So there you go. Smoking and drinking? Okay. Hot-tubbing with cell phone-wielding, squirrel-eating monkeys? Better think again.