This disease going around town isn’t always evident by sight. Instead, its victims announce their symptoms on signs and shirts and bumper stickers — “I Bleed Orange” — as if they were almost proud of their malady.
It doesn’t stop there. Disease never sleeps. It grows when its death has just been proclaimed. It regenerates those limbs that science has lopped off. And when under assault it’s been known to slip into a disguise and change its name and act like an innocent beyond reproach. You say, “Haven’t I seen you someplace before?” And he throws up his hands with a “Who me?” expression covering his face, leaving you to scratch your head and wonder why he looks so familiar. Before you can unmask his true identity he’s already out the door with your good health tucked in his slimy pocket.
And then there are the two-armed, two-legged beastly bandits skulking down our flooded boulevards. Have you heard him — I mean, the cry he emits when you tug his ponytail? It sounds not unlike the wail of the rebel angels when they were tossed into the pitch. Pity the bandit, then, as you would anyone who’s fallen out of God’s favor, and pray, ye believers, that the same fate does not wrap its tendrils around your non-corporeal neck and drag your soul into the darkness. Come closer, dear sinners, and I’ll whisper a secret in your ear. I’ll tell you how to stay on God’s good side. It’s very simple actually. You have to open your heart to the universal wisdom and hear this secret to salvation: You must change your socks.
