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Phase Seven and Beyond Posting Date: May 5 2009 1:01AM In recent days, we have all been introduced to the concept of the Alert Phases for the Pandemic – courtesy of the World Health Organization. We are currently at Phase Five. That’s not so good when you consider that there are only six phases.
Phase One is, “Please cover your mouth when you cough.”
Phase Two is, “Don’t sneeze on me, you gross pig.”
Phase Three is, “I am not cleaning that up.”
Phase Four is, “Is everyone sick here but me?”
Phase Five is, “I think I need a new pair of pants.”
Phase Six is, “Run for your lives! We’re all gonna die!”
I like this system. It’s having an authoritative international agency join forces with the mass media to control your emotional state. It takes the pressure off completely. No longer do I have to decide if I’m in a good mood or a bad mood. The WHO lets me know my emotional state right about the time I turn on my radio, television or computer.
What alert phase are we in today? Two? Sweet! Six? There goes the day.
The scary part of the WHO alert phase system is that it’s actually a ten-phase system. The top four phases are so alarming that they have been withheld from the public for fear of causing a mass panic. Sundaymonkey, of course, can go where the public only dreams of treading, so on your behalf we have retrieved top-secret documentation describing the full ten-phase WHO alert system. You’d better sit down and cover the eyes of nearby children because here come the top four.
Phase Seven is, “Could you hand me my arm?”
Phase Eight is, “Sweet baby Jesus, they’re zombies!”
Phase Nine is, “Oh please let that be the sound of a planet-killing meteor.”
Phase Ten is, “Can you switch the television channel to NBC so I can watch Late Night with Jimmy Fallon?’
This system holds a lot of potential for other segments of our culture and personal lives. In fact, no one should have full control over his her own emotions anymore. We are a connected, wired society and we should take advantage of our ability to transmit information instantly so that we can abdicate responsibility for our feelings to a central power that guides us benevolently in all matters related to our states-of-mind.
Imagine the possibilities.
The ten-phase alert system could have almost universal applicability. High-tech refrigerators could come with a freshness alert. When you bring a package of cold cuts home from Fortino’s, for example, it would register as Phase One. If you bring a package of cold cuts home from Shopper’s Drug Mart, it would be a Phase Two. Cold cuts from Hy & Zel’s Discount Warehouse would be a Phase Six alert. The unidentifiable green ooze in the margarine tub in the back of your vegetable crisper would be a Phase Nine alert and if, when you put the tub on the counter it moves under its own power, that would be a Phase Ten.
You could apply the alert system to farts, of course. It wouldn’t be a good Sundaymonkey column without at least a paragraph devoted to flatulence. Phase One would be the rare odorless and silent toot – basically the kind of fart preferred by Queen Elizabeth and Michelle Obama. Phase Four would be a garden variety offering from a mid-forties male before a night of beer and wings. Anything from a dog or a kitten would come in at Phase Six at a minimum. Phase Eight would be anything generated after eating cold cuts rated at Phase Five or higher. Phase Ten is reserved for farts from zombies eating rotten broccoli.
We could also have the ten-phase alert system for horniness. Phase One would be something like, “Hey look. Roseanne Barr.” Phase Ten would be, “Go get a towel … a big towel.” The same system would work particularly well for something like drunkenness. Phase One would be, “Good morning, Your Holiness.” Phase Three would be, “Do I smell fermenting cabbage?” Phase Six would be, “I love you, man.” Phase Ten would be, “Man, that Roseanne Barr is hot. Go get a towel … a big towel.” |
