I used to think my ex-girlfriend was a bit OCD. Anytime we went out, she refused to touch anything in public – door handles, faucets, countertops, shopping carts, anything. She’d wash her hands and then use a paper towel to open the door. She’d wipe off cart handles with sanitizing wipes before grabbing them. I used to poke fun at her for being paranoid – until one day it finally hit me. She never got sick. 

In the two years we were together, I look back and cannot think of a single time my ex-girlfriend ever had so much as a sniffle. Me, now – I get sick every year. Usually twice a year, and usually bronchitis, which is exacerbated by my asthma and allergies. Of course, I’m a schlub – I’m not disgusting, mind you, but I’d say I’m average. I seldom get terribly ill, usually just bad enough to send me for some antibiotics and cause me a fair amount of genuine annoyance.

Enter Ebola. Ebola is nasty – vomiting, diarrhea, rashes, internal and external bleeding, the list goes on. It’s a slow death, too – slow to show up and slow to finish the job. You could last a month and a half from the time you catch it to the time you bid this cruel world farewell – give or take a couple of days. On average, it kills about half or so of the people it infects. 

My ex-girlfriend would survive an Ebola outbreak. 

Not that there’s been one. A whopping three people have contracted the disease here since the first case popped up in Dallas last month. Only one of them has died, and that could be just because he got sent home from the hospital instead of getting admitted after his first attempt to get help. 

Nevertheless, people are panicking the country over – Mississippi residents are keeping their kids home from school because their kids’ principal visited Zimbabwe – 3,000 miles from the Ebola outbreak in Africa itself, mind you – Kentucky residents are locking themselves up indoors purely because Cleveland is 300 miles away. (OK, that one may be legit – I don’t want to get Cleveland cooties either, and better safe than sorry.)  

But why are people flipping out? It’s nasty, but the paranoia’s gotten a bit ridiculous. The stuff doesn’t exactly spread easily – you have to touch the blood or bodily fluids of someone who’s been infected, then touch your own mucus membranes or open wounds. Not too many of us have hygiene that’s that poor. Refraining from picking our noses will save most of us.

The rest of us, well, the rest of us are college students. And college students are young and virile… yeah, you know where this is going. Because let’s face it, the primary way to share bodily fluids the world over is sex. And college kids are good at that – much to the chagrin of parents and administrators everywhere. 

Queue the horror movie music here – what I just said basically equates to “the ones who have sex before marriage will die first!” Well, no – just swapping enough spit can kill you, too. Mind you, folks – saliva’s on that list along with blood and semen. 

Now that you know your significant other can kill you with a kiss, (and I’ve really freaked you out after telling you you’re silly to worry) take a moment to consider the fact that that means ending the plague (should there ever actually be one) is equally easy – just stop making out when you should be studying. Since the virus can live in semen for up to three months, a three and a half month moratorium on sex and kissing should just about do it. We could even do four months for good measure. 

Either way, that’ll cover a semester. Just think, we’ll all stop worrying, our parents and administrators will stop worrying, we’ll end the plague, and we’ll all raise our grades in the process. Aside from that, I suspect a lot of people will break up with their significant others after having to actually do nothing but talk to each other for four months.  Hey, everybody wins. 

So if there’s ever an actual outbreak here, we’ve got it covered. Now stop worrying about silly plagues and go do your homework.