Nov 13th, 2007 by toryssa
Some people can make an issue out of even the most seemingly trivial of instances. They manage to get themselves all worked into a miserable frenzy over everything. They have the ability to make a neighbors impeding leg amputation their very own week long personal crisis. They take everything so personally. They strive in crisis mode.
My best friend married into a family, who on all other fronts are truly good people, but their knack for dramatics overwhelms me. About everything. About the power MAYBE going out in a wind storm. About So-and-so’s ex-cousin’s step-brother getting lyme disease. About a mohawk. And SO ON. The BFF was watching the Kid for me when he was about 4 months old and she and her husband were rear-ended a block from his parents’ house. The parents called an ambulance; they called me hysterical about an accident. And I, of course, flipped the fuck out. My baby? In an ambulance? In the hospital?
Then I arrived, panicked and terrified, saw my child safely strapped into his baby carrier, and heard it was a fender bender. And, for that moment, I hated them for ever making me think otherwise. For drawing me into their issues.
MRSA in the news lately reminds me of this. I’ve seen it compared to AIDS, I’ve seen it deemed the FLESH EATING VIRUS! But MRSA? It’s resistant to some antibiotics, not antibiotic resistant. There is no full stop. And it’s not new, people have been getting, and surviving, MRSA for a good long time. One goes to the Dr., they take some cultures, and give you the kind of antibiotics that do work. Then you take them. Correctly. But AIDS? There is no fucking cure. You get it, you die. You may be able to live a lot longer now than you could have 30 years ago, but you still die. There is no pill that you can take for 10 days and be alright.
I feel like I’ve gone back in time. It’s the Cold War, and the Russians! They are coming! And THEY EAT BABIES. For a midnight snack. And virgins, for breakfast!
Why is the news allowed to spread panic like this? I get that the news isn’t really an authority, on anything, but they have access to so many people. They absolutely shouldn’t be able to spread fear and paranoia in such a willy-nilly manner. Comparing a Staph infection to AIDS is sensationalist fear mongering.
I don’t know why people get off on such shit. Why are people so quick to pandemonium? And why are we so susceptible? We are, must be, because otherwise it wouldn’t happen. The media frenzies are based on money, money that wouldn’t be made were the public not lapping it up like greedy little children in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.
Isn’t it draining constantly getting emotionally involved without factually understanding something? Doesn’t it take a toll, getting all het up over something that one cannot change? Doesn’t one feel like an asshole when the population does indeed pull through, again, when the world is not over?
7 Responses to “drama”
I finally stopped watching the news because I was sick of stressing myself out over crazy shit. I might skim the headlines to get the gist of what is going on, but I just cannot stand the drama the press puts out.
We were all going to die from the bird flu last year, and the regular flu the year before. It’s crazy. I heard someone just tonight being overly dramatic over MRSA…Wash your hands with soap and water, cover your mouth with you cough or sneeze, and stay away from the sick people and you’ve got it made.
All things that people should be doing regardless of the latest outbreaks.
Also? It’s not air born, so even the dirtiest bastards should be safe if they keep away from open wounds (or places where people have rubbed their open wounds).
The MRSA stuff is ridiculous. I tune it out.
The way the news reports stuff in general bugs the ever-loving shit out of me. The Aqua-dots stuff? Why the eff did they tell every teenage boy in America that it was the date rape drug? Couldn’t they just have said “it’s poison” and been done with it? Now every boy was probably stealing their kids sisters Aqua-dots before the parents can throw the shit away.
Last night I was watching the news and they were talking about all the dogs that were confiscated from Michael Vick that are now in the SPCA near my house. There were like 45 pit bulls (that are not allowed to be adopted until all the court BS is over), but there were also like 20 purebred Beagles. After showing the Beagles they go on to say “We will be adopting them out, but we will not be telling people if they were Vick’s dogs or not, because we fear that people will only be adopting them because they were Vick’s dogs and not to really give them a good home.”
REALLY douchebags? OF COURSE THEY WILL!!! You should have not reported that. How many freaking purebred Beagles do you think the SPCA has at any given time…people WILL KNOW! IDIOTS!
Virgins for breakfast? Whew, for a minute I thought I was in danger.
Seriously, my husbands family are like that. Drives me batshit insane. I can’t begin to tell you how many late-night phone calls we have gotten alerting us to the fact that so and so may have gangrene due to an infected ingrown toenail. As God is my witness, I am not making this up.
The Mrsa talk scared me to death.. I’m a worrier by nature but all that news coverage was too much. What about Y2K? I secretly wanted to create a bunker filled with supplies. LOL.
Bwahaha, you are the people I make fun of :)