Before consciousness, the next thing I knew I was sitting on the couch. "It must be time to go to work" I'm thinking. Ron hands me a bowl of flakes with dehydrated, space-age NASA-approved strawberries. I push them under the flakes to rehydrate them and try not to think about bacon.

He's sitting beside me with the paper. Kitty Kat is being a good cat to the other side until I accidentally touch her butt and she bites me with the No Means No look. Ron says in his best Simpsons War of the Worlds voice "We're doomed, I tell you, doo-o-o-oomed", and shows me the front page newspaper with a picture of two fat guys, one dressed as a female pig, the other as Elvis.

Yesss, I thought. When the aliens come, at least they will have a soft, squishy place to land. I stared down into a cup of hot, oily coffee and wished I could drink it faster.

"There's two in Memphis and one in Mississippi," he said. My brain scrunched up, and I asked what he said. Again, "There's two in Memphis and one in Mississippi... Ahhh! We're doomed!"

"Barbecue festivals?"

"No, two reported cases of SARS," he said. Then I saw it. The big, bold headline, up the page just past the pig and Elvis. "Oh... Who cares. Did you know you can't get any barbecue at that festival unless you cook it yourself?"