MR WRONG: Need the needle
Indignity Vol. 6, No. 77
COLUMN DEP’T.
MR WRONG: You Can't Stop a Hurricane but You Can Stop Giving Me the Flu
IT’S COLD & FLU season! It’s also Hurricane season! Aieee!!! You can’t really do fuck-all about Hurrican Season except batten down the hatches and seek high ground, so if you are in the path of this new Hurricane Isaias, please watch your ass and be safe and don’t drive through standing water like I keep seeing all these chowderheads doing on the Internet. It’s not a boat! There’s all kinds of holes in the bottoms of cars, you are gonna lose! Avoid the water!
Some of our Government still seems to be providing important services, and here’s what I just read from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) and Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):
8 Oct 2026 - 21:00 UTC ...HURRICANE HUNTERS FIND THAT ISAIAS NOW HAS 100 MPH WINDS... ...PREPARATIONS TO PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY FROM STORM SURGE AND DAMAGING WINDS IN THE WARNING AREA SHOULD BE RUSHED TO COMPLETION TODAY... As of 4:00 PM CDT Thu Oct 08 the center of Isaias was located near 24.4, -89.3 with movement NE at 12 mph. The minimum central pressure was 975 mb with maximum sustained winds of about 100 mph.
9 Oct 2026 - 0:00 UTC ...PREPARATIONS TO PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY FROM STORM SURGE AND DAMAGING WINDS SHOULD BE RUSHED TO COMPLETION IN THE WARNING AREA... As of 7:00 PM CDT Thu Oct 08 the center of Isaias was located near 24.9, -88.8 with movement NE at 13 mph. The minimum central pressure was 974 mb with maximum sustained winds of about 100 mph.
Batten down those fucking hatches!
Anyway, it’s still Cold & Flu season, and you can take direct action to protect me from getting your Flu, OK? That’s right! It’s all about me! Survival! Do not be my personal Vector-contact into the Flu! Get a goddamn Flu shot, for one thing. I got my Flu shot the other day, and I’m not gonna lie, it made my arm hurt like hell and I didn’t feel so hot the next day, but I’ve had the Flu before, and being a little jangly and kinda-sorta sick-feeling is a total bargain compared to getting a real-deal case of the Flu!
Look, though, if you don’t get a goddamn Flu shot and then you get the Flu, you might have it near me! Even though I have a Flu shot, it might not work against whatever is festering in your corporeal form!! It’s fucked up! Sometimes the Flu shot doesn’t line up with the Flu-actual, you might have a fucking Variant! There’s no Fair Play with this shit! The Flu is a living thing and it wants to Survive! On you! And then me!
Look at this ”Recommended composition of influenza virus vaccines for use in the 2026-2027 northern hemisphere influenza season” from the World Health Organization (WHO):
Overview
For vaccines for use in the 2026-2027 northern hemisphere influenza season, WHO recommends the following:
Egg-based vaccines
• an A/Missouri/11/2025 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus;
• an A/Darwin/1454/2025 (H3N2)-like virus; and
• a B/Tokyo/EIS13-175/2025 (B/Victoria lineage)-like virus.
Cell culture-, recombinant protein- or nucleic acid-based vaccines
• an A/Missouri/11/2025 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus;
• an A/Darwin/1415/2025 (H3N2)-like virus; and
• a B/Pennsylvania/14/2025 (B/Victoria lineage)-like virus.
There’s a fucking strain called “H3N2 subclade K.” Subclade K! I don’t even know what that means! I don’t want it! Do you want that? I don’t want that!
Typically getting the goddamn shot—which you should be able to get for free, for fuck’s sake—may help to reduce the severity! Play the odds! This isn’t a fucking Kalshi “exchange & prediction market” where you can “trade” or whatever, where you can bet on this shit and win anything except the Flu! And don’t tell me that Kalshi isn’t gambling! It’s fucking gambling exactly like on Wall Street! That’s what they do, they fucking GAMBLE! Unless they have Inside Information in which case that’s where they STEAL! Anybody telling you the Kalshitfuck-thing is not gambling either works for Kalshi or has a problem! And tell them to get a fucking Flu shot!
After you get your Flu shot, please remember to exercise proper caution. Prophylaxis! Go wash your hands! Also! There’s still fucking Covid! That shit didn't magically go away! Get one of those shots too! Protect me at all costs! Thank you.
Speaking of gambling: I am still running though my cycle of re-investing the proceeds from the scratch-offs I bought (unless I hit BIG) thanks to a generous donation and I am currently holding this winning ticket worth three bucks which I will re-invest and report upon next week!
The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly. No refunds. Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, October 4, 2026
★ Sprinkling showers began falling hours ahead of schedule. The rain fell as fine noise against the dark brick of the nearest apartment tower and it gleamed where it pooled in the deep folds of the dogwood leaves. During a lull, two bottle-and-can collectors stood in ponchos waiting as the brick tower's garbage elevators slowly raised its cargo up to sidewalk level. On the way down into the Park, a gust of drips became a new shower became real rain splashing little white flecks all over the Pool at once, raising bubbles where it hit the remaining patches of algae. An umbrella stood upside down and open and entirely alone on the grass, a few yards from the shriveled wreckage of a once-festive cluster of peach-and-rose-toned balloons.
New York City, October 5, 2026
★★★★ A bright line, high up behind the leaves and branches in the dark street, marked where the sun, its angle and its timing both diminished, finally found the tops of the townhouses. The sky was blue and the light was clear but from indoors, it only took one of the neat white clouds crossing the sun to throw the view back into gloom. Outdoors, though, what the light had lost in volume it made up in reverb. Ordinary white hoodies shone like Tyvek clean-room suits. An early-turning zelkova tree tossed its flame-touched foliage in the breeze. The air was crisp and warm simultaneously; people wore jackets or also no jackets, or they carried jackets with them; the day was whatever one chose to make of it. Someone had tried to square all the possibilities by wearing a shirt and sweater vest cropped to bare the midriff. The blue and white of the sky were mirrored in the glaze of white brick in the gap between buildings. Windows on both sides of the street reflected the images of the windows opposite them. Wildly elongated leaf shadows waved like sea grass on the East Side's stone facades. The centers of the clouds were smoothed just-gray with ragged white showing around their edges. In the Pool, algae had slid to the top of the falls, where it lay dark and lumpy with paler duckweed and pastel-colored leaves caught along the curves and undulations in it.
New York City, October 6, 2026
★★★★ A tiny gap or just a less than tight closure of the window had let cold air flood into the bedroom overnight. A heavy cotton sweater came down from high in the closet, and the dozing cat had to be chased off the thick hoodie. The tips of the branches out back were faded and yellower than before where they reached up against the cloudless blue. Every seam of the flashing on the roofline showed, and every row of mortar on the brick tower off behind it. Shoes crunched little acorns against the cobblestones and crackled on dry leaves in the grass of the hilltop lawn. The quick walk up the stairs there left the upper airway faintly burning with unaccustomed cold, colder than the worst excesses of air conditioning or anything else for months. The shadows were blue and deep and early. A line of teen boys, dressed for cross-country in school T-shirts, came pelting down the hill and off along the downtown path, followed too late by teen girls shouting that they'd gone the wrong way.
New York City, October 7, 2026
★★★★ Bright motes of unidentifiable matter floated in the almost nonexistent currents of the calm morning. The Sixth Avenue intersections were violently cross-lit as the strong ascending sun came in directly and then hit the glass of Midtown for a second stroke. Figures walking west emerged suddenly and unpredictably from the backlighting. The sky was getting gemlike again, and tall boots were everywhere. A tiny, rattily shaggy dog thrust its head and shoulders out the open window of a parked SUV to yap and snarl at a French bulldog waddling by. A very minor breeze had arrived, just strong enough to encourage the slow, golden fall of honeylocust leaflets.
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS for the assembly of sandwiches selected from Good Things To Eat: As Suggested by Rufus, by Rufus Estes, Formerly of the Pullman Company Private Car Service, and Present Chef of the Subsidiary Companies of the United States Steel Corporations in Chicago, published by the author in 1911 and now available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
HAM SANDWICHES— Chop two cups of ham, using a little fat with the lean. Mix one tablespoon of flour with enough cold water to make smooth, add one-half cup of boiling water, and cook five minutes; then add the ham and one teaspoon of dry mustard. Mix well and press into a bowl or jar.
JAPANESE SANDWICHES— These are made of any kind of left-over fish, baked, broiled or boiled. Pick out every bit of skin and bone, and flake in small pieces. Put into a saucepan with just a little milk or cream to moisten, add a little butter and a dusting of salt and pepper. Work to a paste while heating, then cool and spread on thin slices of buttered bread.
SANDWICHES FROM COLD MUTTON— Chop very fine, and to each pint add a tablespoonful of capers, a teaspoonful each chopped mint and salt, a dash of pepper, and a teaspoonful lemon juice. Spread thickly on buttered slices of whole wheat bread, cover with other slices of buttered bread, and cut in triangles.
If you are inspired to prepare a sandwich inspired by our continued offerings, be sure to send along a description of your experience and maybe a few photos to us here: indignity@indignity.net.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
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S_BST_CK IS DOUBLEPLUS UNGOOD DEP'T.
