Posted by Larry Hoover on February 13, 2006, at 22:31:04
Every time it happens, it annoys me to no end. Some freaky little virus, a form of "life" which does not even bother to contain DNA, hijacks my body, and turns it into a virus factory. Just so it can, in turn, perchance go on to do the same thing to the next unsuspecting person.
One influenza virus particle weighs, on average, 1.74 X 10^8 Daltons, or 2.89 X 10^-16 grams. That's 28.9 femptograms. Less than the smallest speck. Far tinier than a mote. I outweigh the little bastard by a factor of 3.32 X 10^20, but I can't just crush him to smithereens. No.
Instead, he sneaks on board, and over days, hoards of his kin, churned out by the hijacked machinery of my own body, evoke fatigue and ache and pain and breathing problems.
I've done my best to contain the virus. I don't think I've infected another person. That is all that I can do, in protest.
I hate you, Mr. Flu. But chances are, I've spent many times more energy thinking about you than you've thought about me. Virus 1, Lar 0.
:-/
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:609318
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20060212/msgs/609318.html