So when your throat becomes scratchy, your eyes itchy, your head throbbing next month in the middle of flu season, how will you know that you will recover? Well, one way to give your fears full rein is to get a flu shot that will be offered in the dining halls the next few weeks. Then if you start sniffling, aching and hiccuping, you can demand to be placed in a negative-pressure hospital suite (standard procedure for infectious Ebola patients) while doctors perform myriad blood tests and no doubt confirm their suspicions: You have a strain of flu that you were not inoculated against.

After all there have been no cases of Ebola in the U.S. and the host organism is suspected to be indigenous to Africa. But better safe than sorry--so get those flu shots and get paranoid.

B.J. Greenleaf '01 is a physics concentrator in Mather House. His column appears on alternate Tuesdays.