“It’s not time to panic.”

Once again the government has told me it’s not time to panic. It’s the same thing it told me when the terrorists attacked, when the banks all failed and now that a swine flu pandemic is threatened. In fact it’s the only thing that both the Bush administration and the Obama administration seem to agree on.

It makes me nervous. I’m afraid the time to really panic will come and no one will tell me. I’m also worried that I haven’t been given any instructions what to do when I’m supposed to panic. My wife thinks panic means a run on the banks—just like It’s a Wonderful Life. I sort of think it means that you need to go buy water, canned goods and a generator—just like the turning of the millennium. We all panicked then and I think it brought us together. Of course I already have enough canned goods to feed us for a year. I think it’s hereditary. When my grandmother died, we found enough canned goods set aside for another decade. If you have enough canned goods, then you never need to worry about panicking.

In Mexico the government cancelled all the bullfights. That’s a satisfactory act of panic, but I don’t think it would work as well here. Although cancelling something you don’t have certainly smacks of panic.

Anyway, since it isn’t time to panic yet, I just went into work this morning like always. Otherwise the swine flu wins—or something like that.