So there’s this thing called mumps. Maybe you’ve heard of it, but only because we live in a world where mumps outbreaks are suddenly a thing again, even though pretty much everyone in my generation grew up blissfully mumps free because it wasn’t a problem back then and we could frolic with our classmates and the worst illness we could get from them was chickenpox. Mumps wasn’t even in my vocabulary until about five years ago and I’ve got a pretty good vocabulary. I even know words like ‘deleterious’ and 'effervescent’ and how to use them (correctly) in a sentence. Even as a kid, I had a good vocabulary, to the point I was accused of plagiarism by a teacher in the fifth grade. That’s about all I remember about him – he owned rescue greyhounds, accused me of plagiarism, and threatened to take away everyone’s Tamagotchis and lock them in the closet until they starved to death. Haven’t a clue what he taught.

So Tamagotchis failed to make a comeback, much like hammer pants, but mumps, however, has.

I bring this up because I happen to be sick right now.

With mumps.

Let me be clear on this. I got the vaccine as a kid. I got two doses, even. My mother has always been very stringent on our vaccine dates (I happen to have a note here by my desk of the dates I received each dose of MMR, as well as meningitis and something called a t-dap, just in case the doctor asks, she said). However, the CDC states that the MMR is only 88% effective at preventing mumps, which is why we also rely on something called herd immunity.

What is herd immunity? Well…

The CDC also describes the symptoms of mumps, but let me tell what it’s really like.

Imagine being punched in the face. If you’ve never been punched in the face before, go watch a season of Supernatural, it’s bound to happen a dozen times or so. Now imagine Dean’s fist connecting with your face.

Mmmmm. Dean.

Ahem. Still not vivid enough? Look, I’ve been punched in the face – well – it wasn’t actually a punch, it was actually part of a medieval reenactment event so I was actually stabbed in the face with a rattan spear while wearing full armor – but still – it’s not an experience I’m keen to repeat. Imagine this dull pain, like an anaconda has wrapped itself around your wrist and is slowly squeezing it to death and you swear you can hear your bones grinding against each other.

Now imagine that inside your face.

Inside. Your face.

Somewhere where the jaw meets the neck. And imagine that every time you try to eat something or even open your jaw too wide, that anaconda vomits a hamster into your face and that hamster starts chewing away at the muscles and tendons inside.

Add in some body aches, exhaustion, fever, and dry mouth and you’ve got mumps.

Let me make this perfectly clear. The reason mumps and all these other childhood illnesses are coming back is because some parents aren’t vaccinating their crotch-spawn, turning them into walking bags of plague and then releasing them into public society like a worshiper of Chaos summoning a flock of nurglings.

This rant is dedicated to those parents. Yes, the anti-vaccers. The parents that think their parental responsibilities also include forging themselves an imaginary medical degree so they can conjure their own special fantasyland where their children are magically exempt from vaccinations because they heard some parent say there was some badly designed Geocities reject of a website that once claimed that vaccinations cause autism because vaccines have a lot of scary words in them that are hard to pronounce.

To those parents I say: fuck you.

I suppose I could spend a lot of time here linking statistics and science and all that crap. But here’s the thing. I’m in a leadership class right now at my prestigious business school where I’m getting my MBA and we just spent about two weeks covering how people will ignore facts and evidence, no matter how well presented it is or how absolutely correct it is. In fact, the professor delivered a lovely dialogue on this using the anti-vaccers as an example of the mind-boggling stupidity that otherwise rational people will engage in. Arguing with them isn’t worth the time. This isn’t about them being right. It’s about them feeling right and feeling like they know something no one else does, because God knows how miserable and unfulfilled they are now that they’ve found they’ve got everything they wanted and still aren't happy.

They’re not scared of vaccines. They’re scared of being insignificant.

So I resort to ridicule, because if they’re going to be a drain on society, I might at least get SOMETHING out of it and right now, sick as I am, I need a new punching bag.

But but but how can you claim vaccines don’t cause autism without evidence!? Okay, fine. Have some evidence.

What? That not good enough? Okay. Let me put it this way. I could link statistics and studies until my pain meds kick in and I’m too dizzy to sit up straight and it wouldn’t do a damn bit of difference. You see, anti-vaccers aren’t stupid. They are willfully ignorant and that is a very different beast. It means that they’ve seen the evidence, the mountains of it, and then deliberately chosen to reject it. They’re the special snowflakes of the internet generation, not content with their herbal supplements and have branched out into the kitsch territory of conspiracy theories. Don’t try to reason with them. They’ve got it all figured out and only they are so perceptive, so enlightened, to see through all the evil evil words the scientists are flinging out (some of those words have five syllables) and realize that in order to protect their precious darling, they must shun all evils of modern medicine and keep them from getting poked with needles (scary!) and injected with what might be DEAD VIRUSES AND OTHER SCARY CHEMICALS THEY TOTALLY UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR FOUR-YEAR COLLEGE DEGREE IN A COMPLETELY UNRELATED FIELD.

They’re also full of more crap than an organic juice-cleansing binge-drinker just shit out into the toilet.

Of course, they completely fuck over the rest of us and their own children in the process. The true hilarity of this is that whenever there’s an outbreak of whooping cough or mumps in the area, there’s a veritable stampede of these parents dragging their nurglings into the doctor to get caught up on the vaccination schedule that 'slipped their mind.’

Yep. Slipped right through their mind while they were filling out the bogus paperwork about their sincerely held conspiracy theory beliefs to get their sentient sacks of meat and disease admitted to the public school system.

In case I have not made this clear, I say to the anti-vaccers: fuck you.

Fuck you.

Fuck you.

You’re not special. You haven’t figured out something no one else has. You’re a delusional maggot feeding on the putrid underbelly of our society, siphoning off information you barely understand and gargling on outright lies, then vomiting it back up coated with a bile of self-righteousness.

You aren’t doing what’s best for your children. You’re augmenting your own sense of self-confidence by pretending to know more than the experts, at the expense of not only their health and well-being, but that of everyone else in society as well.

Because yes, mumps is bad. So are all the other diseases that are making a comeback, especially for those of us with compromised immune systems. Like the seriously ill or the infants too young to be vaccinated. And that could be life-threatening.

I wish you nothing but ill will. If I could, I’d show up at your front door and lick your face all over. Because hey, mumps isn’t THAT bad, right? C'mere. I got a big slobbery viral-ridden kiss for you. And I’m sure we could find some petri dishes for you to lick as well to prove your point. We’ll load them with something like smallpox. You don’t need vaccines, right? Here’s a straw. Suck it in, fucker.

But seriously, I hope you someday have to face the consequences of your actions.

And I hope those consequences are that your children grow up and learn of what a dumbfuck you are and grow to be embarrassed of your decisions.

And I hope they elect to get vaccinated as adults.

Sincerely,

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