Nothing but the hits.

MALARIA IS SEXY
For the past two months I've been keeping typhoid in my refrigerator. And no, this isn't some new kind of hot sauce or novelty beer. I'm talking about real typhoid, the intestinal intruder, the bacterial bad boy, the legendary gastrointestinal ghoul.

Seriously, look on the shelf right to my butter and you'll see a little box that says: Oral Typhoid. Inside the box are two pills, each carrying just enough typhoid to jump start my immune system without putting me in the hospital. They're part of the vaccination schedule for my upcoming travels, but I've been holding off on taking them because they only provide immunity for a limited amount of time. Once they're out of the way, I will have completed my medly of deadlies, having likewise infected myself with yellow fever, tetanus, diptheria, and hepatitis A & B.

One of the diseases you can't get vaccinated for, though, is malaria. Instead, you have to take antibiotics for the entire length of time you're travelling in malaria-prone areas. This shouldn't be much of a problem for us, but the issue got me to thinking about travellers and disease, and I have come to the conclusion that, among a certain subset of people, having malaria might actually be... well, sexy.

Here I'm thinking mostly of the modern tribal set—the folks for whom tattoos and scars are a badge of honor. Here in the bay area we've got quite a few of these people, and I know for a fact that many of them wouldn't even think of dating someone who didn't have a tattoo, or dreadlocks, or some other visible token of bohemian badassedness.

But malaria... now that's a trump card. Anyone can get a tattoo. But telling someone you have malaria says: "I am a real child of the soil. I have been to exotic parts of the world and shook with fever in a jungle cot. I am so genuine, man."

The only problem is that after a while, other people might start infecting themselves with malaria just too keep up with the cool factor. Malaria parlors would open, and magazines with titles like FEVER would appear on newsstands. Eventually, the whole thing would become mainstream.

Thank goodness there's always Japanese encephalitis.