Ah, you’re dreaming about the Dark Man.
Enjoy Vegas. . . while it’s there.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve been feeling god-awful. If it’s not nailed to the inside of my body, it’s running out one way or the other. There’s also a gremlin with a jackhammer in my head, and he’s workin overtime. I went to the local CVS, but it was closed. At noon? Whatever, I’m goin to Safeway.
Well, school was closed today. Too many people called in and they couldn’t get enough subs. This is not good, and by not good I mean, really fuckin’ scary. I still have the hayfever, but no actual fever or that gross phlegm or anything. I’m glad I got the flu shot this year, because this one is a doozy, man.
Jurph: Yeah, maybe I was paranoid about Haircut, but that’s all over because there’s a new Haircut now, and he’s still talking a lot of crap about a vaccine and everything is under control. It really doesn’t seem like that to me. This place is getting kinda quiet. I live way the hell out in the middle of nowhere, so I don’t see many people anyway, and frankly, I’m afraid to go down to town right now. Afraid someone’s going to sneeze on me.
Funny you guys should mention an old black lady. I had a dream about a corn field that was pretty scary-- I was sure there was a wolf in the row next to me, getting ready to jump out and bite my face off-- and then an old lady was singing, and I walked out and saw a nice looking old farmhouse. I suddenly felt better about everything for a second. Then I woke up and remembered that my dad is in the hospital and I have to try to drive down to NYC this weekend. My brother has the flu and can’t really get down there to talk to the doctors. Will let you all know how that goes when I get back.
I was up all last night with the flu, and to make it worse, my upstairs neighbor was clumping around in his worn down cowboy boots all night.
Well, they shut down work today. Too many people out sick.
Funny, there were guys in camoflage with machine guns manning the front desk. I don’t know where the receptionists were. I just turned around and went home.
There also seem to be a lot of traffic accidents along I-4 and the turnpike, but hardly any police to clean them up.
I see a lot of sick people, but I’m feeling fine. No dreams, though, about old ladies with guitars.
Anyone notice in addition to the sneezing and coughing, the sickies necks’ seem, I don’t know, thicker? Almost like they swallowed an inner tube?
My local affiliates are showing reruns of Friends and Frasier instead of the news, and CNN is showing documentaries they must have borrowed from the History Channel.
I can’t get a hold of my sister in Tampa, and she’s a nurse. I’ll keep trying and let you know if I hear anything.
You know, I was thinking about starting a Pit thread about this. I took my kids to the doctor’s office today, and he just said to treat them with OTC stuff. (Side note: Six docs in the practice and only one showed up today. All the rest are out sick. The place was packed to the rafters with sick kids.)
Anyway, I went to CVS to get some TheraFlu and the clerk at the CVS was so damn sick, hacking and sneezing all over the place. If you’re sick, STAY HOME! I hate when people come in to work sick!
She apologized, and said everyone else either called in sick or just didn’t show up, but still. Stop coughing on me! It was creepy, though. It was just her and the manager. The cold remedies section was nearly wiped out.
There was a deaf guy in the parking lot who wrote me a note and asked for directions to I-95. He was headed south, Arkansas, I think.
He had bought a bunch of Power Bars and things like that. I hope he’ll be okay. I can’t imagine hiking around the country all alone, and deaf.
I saw a bunch of Army Humvees on the road, too.
The regular newcast anchors have all been replaced by strangers. The newscasts are down to just a half-hour, too, rather than a hour.
My husband took his parents to the hospital this morning because they were so sick, (and their regular doc was unavailable) and I can’t get hold of him. I tried calling the hospital, but just get a busy signal, the weird fast one like when the lines are down. I’ve left 3 or 4 messages on his cell phone. If my kids seem better later, I might drive over there, but all the Army vehicles on the roads are scaring me. And I don’t want to leave my kids alone.
Look, people, something’s going on. This isn’t “just the flu”. Most of my friends are in their mid 20’s - and I’ve lost four of them in the last week. Isn’t it supposed to be the elderly and very young that are most susceptible to the flu?
I don’t know what’s going on elsewhere, but things here in Knoxville are crazy. There’s almost no one around, they’ve had the university shut down for a week (and it almost never closes, except for those budget problems a couple of years ago) and I saw what looks like body bags at the construction site near campus, only it doesn’t look like people are there actually doing anything with them.
I tried to go down to Chattanooga to see my parents yesterday - I heard they were sick from my brother who managed to get through on his cell phone. But I got to around Loudon and the road was completely blocked by a car accident. It was strange though - it didn’t look like anyone was hurt, or even like the cars were damaged, but they were completely blocking the road. Highway 11 runs that way too - I might try today to take that road south and see if I can get there.
The students here at school are restless - and I don’t blame them! This is scary, and it’s killing too many. I don’t believe there’s any vaccine. We’re planning a protest for Friday - because we need the truth. We’re scared, but we have to know.
Normally I hear trains at night, but I just realized that I haven’t heard a train in a couple of days. They pass by sort of close, and I can usually hear them.
I feel perfectly healthy.
It seems like quite a few of the regulars on this board have gone missing lately. Let’s hope they’re all just enjoying a nice holiday. I also find the board noticeably quicker these days.
No shit. I’m really scared now.
Was there something in the body bags you saw, Lsura, or were they empty?
I finally gathered up my courage and drove over to the hospital, looking for my husband and in-laws. They’ve been doing construction there, but I saw them dumping what looked like full body bags in a huge hole, and they weren’t even trying to be discrete about it.
I found my husband’s truck in the parking lot, but the admitting clerk (who had a gun, WTF?!?), wouldn’t tell me anything. He kept citing privacy laws and the Patriot Act. Yeah, right, asshole.
If I may hijack this thread for a moment: I feel sorry for my unnecessarily harsh reply in that Pit thread on the European ban on US flights. However, you should realize that the European newspapers have recently printed some rather worrying articles. Granted, some of those messages are needlessly alarmist, and I can’t vouch for the medical accuracy of those. Still, this is a seriously debated topic over here and I’m surprised that it is no issue for you at all, since you’re in the midst of it.
I still don’t feel the EU is being too harsh: the ban is not aimed against the US in particular. It’s only done because it is better to be careful as long as we don’t know what’s going on. I mean, it’s not as if the EU is alone on this. The WHO has for weeks been pressing your government for information, without getting any meaningful respons.
I would have posted this in that other thread, but it seems to have disappeared. Maybe it’s because of all those trolls posting silly paranoid warning messages in there.
What’s does the flu have to do with June? 
They didn’t look empty, but I didn’t want to get too close. I don’t think I know anyone who hasn’t gotten this - I don’t know why I haven’t, but I’m still hopeful that I won’t (although I wonder if I want to be the only one left alove in this whole town).
I think I’m going to go to the grocery store and the gas station this afternoon and stock up on stuff - what if deliveries can’t get made?
I had this all typed up and ready to go and then lost it to another power outage, damn it! I really hope they get that straightened out asap. Anyway, there’s a branch office of the CDC or something a bit north of where I live, in Stovington (VT). At work last night one of the route drivers who goes past it said there was a sudden big flurry of activity there, all the lights on, cars driving in and out, some of them were army vehicles, “some kinda shit goin’ down”, he said. I tried to get more out of him, but he didn’t have time to talk much, he had to do a bunch of routes for people who had called in sick. And he didn’t look too good himself.
Since it’s so near me I have a selfish hope that it will be a distribution center for the vaccine. They better get on the ball with that, though, people are really getting seriously sick.
[sub]Excellent thread idea, kudoes to Ivylass. If King were starting this novel today, he’d have to seriously rework it.[/sub]
Ok, so, I called around this morning. I called my boss, who said she and her husband were both sick, and I called some friends, who were also sick. And I called my professors and half of them didn’t answer the phone and the other half were sick.
My husband had a “tickle” in this throat today.
Stater Bros, Wal Mart, K-Mart, Albertsons, and WalGreens are all bursting to the seams with sick people looking for flu medicine. I tried to go buy some food today at Albertsons and there was…well…there was a body in the frozen food section. I don’t know if she was dead or just passed out, but she looked really, really awful…just disgusting. And people kept walking past her, ignoring her. I had to leave.
I think I’ll just watch old movies today.
[STILL OFF-TOPIC]
I’ve been thinking about this and it actually makes sense. Who would be well enough to sit at a computer long enough to make posts about it? The healthy.
I’d think at this point in the thread it would be only healthy people.
But count me down as someone who believes the Internet wouldn’t change anything.
Oh Dear God.
I FINALLY got through to my sister. Her call center is swamped with parents with sick children, and they have no idea how this happened so fast. On top of that, her husband died! He was sick at home, and he couldn’t breathe, and he was too heavy to move herself, so she called 911, and they said they’d put her on the list! What list is that? Who the hell needs a list for an ambulance???
I know this is going to sound awful, but I’m not that sorry my BIL is dead. He was an uneducated braggart and I know my sister could have done better. No great loss, actually.
She’s going to try and come up here, but 1-4 is getting worse with traffic.
The other thing is, I’m seeing dead dogs and even horses, but the cats seem to be doing fine.
I really don’t know what to do.
(Question off topic…why did the power go out? Do they need personnel to man the stations?)
I’ve been making phone calls, too, pepperlandgirl, and just about everyone I know is sick. My sisters and their familes, my neighbors and friends, and most of my coworkers.
Two of my coworkers are okay, but nearly everyone they know is sick, too.
I think my next-door neighbors are dead. Their cars are there, but they’re not answering the phone or the door. They were sick when I talked to them the other day. I have a key, because we water their plants when they go away, but I’m a little afraid to use it and walk on in. I’m afraid of what I might find.
In the book, the outbreak started in June.
I still have power, thank God. It’ll be awful when that goes. I’m going to go make sure I have a full tank of gas in the car and some extra in the gas cans in the garage.
I think I might drag all the camping gear out of the attic. I feel this strange compulsion to go somewhere. Colorado, maybe? I don’t know what it is…
Ok, I was going to mention that. At work we had lots of veterinary calls from all over the country (and Canada) about sick/dying dogs and horses, and people were making a connection between them having something like the flu and everyone else having it. Think about it…when was the last time you heard a dog barking? I don’t have a dog, but I’m starting to think nobody else does, either.
I definitely think there are bio-weapons involved here, because the sheer scale of this makes SARS look like chicken pox.