This means nothing. It’s just something I wrote a few years ago.
“He’s a piece of work, that Bob,” said Jim. He bit into the hot dog and grimaced. The mustard was more pungent than he expected. “A real bullshitter.”
Dave snorted, “I’ll say. Did he ever tell you about the time he climbed Denali?” He took a sip from a liter-sized bottle of water with lemon slices. He hadn’t eaten for twenty hours. It was called an “intermittent fast” on the internet. He called it starvation. “With that beer gut? Yeah, right. He climbed Denali the way I pitched a no hitter on Opening Day.” He checked his cell phone. Four more hours to go.
“He shed dat?” asked Jim through the wad of bun, mustard, and sauerkraut that was stuck to both surfaces of his upper teeth like plaster. He tried to dislodge it with his tongue but that didn’t work, so he bent his head down and away and used a forefinger.
Dave discreetly offered a napkin. “Yep. So what do you think about this virus thing that Bullshitter Bob was talking about? He says it’s bad and we should all be ready for an epidemic. No, ‘pandemic’. That’s the word he used. Pandemic. Like epidemic isn’t good enough.”
Jim accepted the napkin gratefully and wiped the forefinger on it. “Well… it does sound bad from what I’ve read. It’s a new virus. No one’s ever had it. No one is immune.” He folded the napkin neatly.
“No one? Who says? Consider the source. Sources. They exaggerate like crazy nowadays. SARS, MERS, Ebola. Remember Ebola? We were all gonna be running around in hazmat suits! That turned out to be fake news. Nothing happened. And every storm is a Category Five hurricane. Stop the catastrophizing.”
“Catastrophizing, pandemic,” Jim said. “Look who’s with the fancy words. Two in one day. OK, but once in a while, the hurricane really does come.”
He took another bite of the hot dog but this time he didn’t grimace. This time he knew what to expect.