People, please, if I might have your attention for a second, I have an urgent warning for you: Breathing can be really, really dangerous. You all need to stop breathing right away. When you breathe, deadly viruses like staphylococcus and streptococcus can enter your body and cause your own immune system to murder you.
You also need to stop eating and drinking for exactly the same reason. And remember that if you eat, you could choke, even on something as mushy as guacamole, according to studies I just invented. And if you drink and accidentally inhale some water or beer, you can drown, even if you're crawling through the desert or at the bowling alley. It's like the experts say: Drowning isn't just a problem for babies in 2 inches of water.
Oh, and you should probably also make sure that you never cut or scrape yourself, bite your fingernails, shave, walk barefoot or open your eyes. In fact, as a legal disclaimer, I'm required to inform you that just reading this column could cause death.
So, does everyone have that? Breathing, eating, drinking, bleeding and opening your eyes can all potentially kill you, and you should stop doing them immediately. Thank you.
What? You think I'm being a little over-the-top? Not really. I prefer to think of it as winning the race to the bottom. I figure that eventually the media will declare everything bad for you, and I just wanted to scoop everyone by being the one to point out the very real dangers of our most basic needs.
It's not like I'm not lying. What I said is 100 percent true (except for the part about the guacamole studies). When you breathe, eat or drink, there is a chance that you could ingest a virus, and there is a chance that the virus could kill you. Could you avoid that risk if you didn't eat, drink or breathe? Yes, just not for very long.
So, there -- I won. I won the race to alarm people about the most ridiculous thing possible. It's done. I didn't want to do it so soon, but a headline and actual news story I read this morning just lowered the bar so far that I had to act fast to limbo under it.
The headline? "Picking your nose is not only disgusting -- it can also be really dangerous."
That's right: It was a story -- with an actual doctor talking on a video -- about how picking your nose can be dangerous because you could cause an abrasion and introduce a virus into your body. Therefore, if you ever pick your nose, you could be in danger.
Thank God I never pick mine. I hire migrant farmworkers to do it for me.
But the rest of you nose-pickers should be scared, especially if you have sharp fingernails or a penchant for going deep. That next pick could be your last.
The funny thing is that back in junior high school I had a biology teacher who wouldn't pick her nose or even blow her nose because boogers are the first line of defense when it comes to keeping germs out of your body. Of course, she didn't call them boogers -- she called them "lovely mucus membranes," if I remember correctly -- but we all knew what she meant.
The irony of all that is that despite her best efforts, she contracted a virus and died young. I mean, she got run over by a bus, admittedly, but she did have a virus in her at the time.
I kid, I kid. It was a minivan.
Now, a more cynical person than I might consider a story warning you not to pick your nose to be yet another example of the media and their corporate overlords trying to keep everyone in a state of fear because it's good for business. They likely couldn't explain how the overlords intended to monetize a dearth of unpicked boogers, but they'd assure you that there must be some way to make them profitable.
I'm not that cynical, though. I honestly think the article was a sincere attempt to make the world a safer place, and yet I think I have to disagree with it. I think a good pick every now and then can be beneficial, like red wine. So I say pick away, despite the risk.
Just remember: You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't wipe your friends under the couch.
Todd Hartley wants to remind idiots that they should actually not stop eating, drinking or breathing. He was kidding. To read more or leave a comment, please visit zerobudget.net.