Everyone gets sick at one time or another.  There are many ways to minimize how often you fall ill and many ways to speed up recovery time.  Everybody knows these ways.  Everybody has spent time thinking about these ways.  However, how much time have you actually devoted to the opposite?  To getting and staying sick? Who’s to say that getting sick is less important than avoiding sickness? 

   The following is a list, plus descriptions and pictures, of the most daring and awesome ways to get sick and stay sick:

 

5.  Lick and taste everything. The item that you choose to taste must be frequently touched by the hands of others.  Why?  Because hands are disgusting.  In Latin, hand means very dirty disease.  It’s true.  So, start licking and tasting ATM buttons, a subway poll, a computer mouse in a library, the door handle at your office, the sweaty weight bench at the gym, etc.  The list of absolutely endless, and the opportunities are everywhere.  This method should be started immediately.

 

4.  Thirsty?  Drink some water from a fountain.  I would venture a guess that certain public fountains are clean.  They include very new, clean, elaborate fountains inside new, classy malls.  You should avoid those, especially because their piping is probably clean and lead-free.  To get sick, the public fountain from which you should drink should should very old, outdoors in a very touristy spot, and have lots of coins in it.  There should be pidgins on the fountain, and consequently, lots of bird poop.  Bird poop is good.  Very good.

 

3. If you must go to the doctor, visit one who doesn’t speak your language.  If you speak only English, visit one who speaks only Spanish.  If you speak only Italian (which many of my readers do), visit one who speaks only French.  Simple.  Your effort will result in a wrong diagnosis and a wrong and potentially harmful prescription.   Not only will visiting this doctor keep you ill, but it’ll afford you the opportunity for extra side effects.  Yay!

 

 2.  Never sleep.  Ever.  Avoiding sleep will virtually ensure that you get sick, stay sick, and become sicker by nearly shutting down your immune system.  You wont be able to fight off infections and you wont be able to heal or recover from old ones.  If you don’t sleep, the only way to avoid getting sick is to live in a bubble.  Since you don’t have a bubble (I have one), then you’ll definitely get sick.

 

1.  Walk around all day with your mouth open – you’re bound to have some infectious germ fly in there, especially if you have a big mouth.  Just keep your mouth open all day long.  Keep it open on the bus-ride to work, while in a meeting with your boss, while at the gym, while doing the laundry, until you go to sleep.  It’s even more effective if you can somehow train yourself to sleep with your mouth open.  (On a side note, make a concerted effort to do this in an airplane, where germs float around like they’re having a party).

 

   So, if you follow these five daring and awesome methods, you’re almost guaranteed to get sick.  Good luck!

 

P.S.  If you get get sick by following my advice, you are not allowed to sue me.

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   The school I attended from first through eighth grade, South Area Solomon Schechter Day School (SASSDS), was amazing.  I loved it.  My friends were great; my classes were great; my teachers were great; everything was great.

   My sister and two brothers also attended that school, and recently, while cleaning out a cabinet in the dining room of our house, my youngest brother discovered a Chanukia that he created several years ago there.  It’s a nostalgic piece of Schectorobilia.  Take a look:

Very nice.  Very damaged.  Very clearly done by a child who couldn’t stay within the lines.

    There is one serious problem with this Chanukia… Can you spot it?

(by the way, the difference between a Menorah and Chanukia is that…

• a regular Menorah holds seven candles and is a powerful symbol of Judaism.
• a Chanukia (or Chanukah Menorah) holds eight candles plus the Shamash (for a total of nine candles), and is lit on Chanukah.  Each candle (not including the Shamash), represents one day of the eight-day long miracle of Chanukah.  This miracle occurred in the Temple in Jerusalem during the time of Judah the Maccabee.  After the Romans desecrated the Temple, there was enough oil to last only one day, and miraculously, that one-day’s worth of oil lasted a full eight days!

…that is the difference between a Chanukia and a Menorah)

   Back to the problem… were you able to see it? 

  Okay, here is the issue:  It’s made of wood!  How often do you see items that hold fire and candles made of wood?  NEVER.  Why not?  Because it’ll inevitably catch fire or at least burn itself.  So, to the teacher at Schechter that had my brother make a wooden Menorah: “That was a crazy move.  You are crazy.”

   As evidenced by the picture, someone in my family lit this piece of Chanukah insanity and the Shamash holder inevitably burned.  Since the first two days’ holders are missing and the third day’s isn’t burnt at all, we can deduce that whomever lit this Chanukia learned his or her lesson pretty quickly, on the first or second day.  We are lucky the house didn’t burn down.  That would not have been good. 

So, the morals of this post?

• The difference between a regular Menorah and a Chanukia is important.
• Do not start a fire on or in a wooden object.
• Do not build a fire-holder out of wood.