I was watching the news this past week while my son was directing traffic for his trucks, elephants, and dinosaurs respectively. The newscaster repeatedly uttered the words “Swine Flu” to the extent that my son halted his traffic duties to ask me “Why does the man keep saying swine flu Daddy?..what’s swine flu?” Internally I winced because I honestly did not have an easy way to explain this topic. Nonetheless, in my role as Daddy aka answer man, I had to forge ahead and provide my son with some details. I told him it was a type of very bad cold spread from person to person and pig to pig. He looked at me as though I was the biggest dolt in the world. Then he proceeded to correct me “Daddy, the man said swine flu, not pig flu, silly daddy.” “Well” I said, “pigs are also called swine.” “Oh” he responded….processing this new information for a moment..”so swine flu is piggy flu?” “Yes” I said, “swine flu is piggy flu.” Smiling, he then ran back off to resume what he was doing while shouting “piggy flu! piggy flu!” I, on the other hand, was left pondering the more serious question of whether or not to get the swine flu vaccination.
Piggy Flu