Missing the beach was making me pretty down, so I decided to turn my life into a Visa commercial. (I'm also really bored - the only times I've left the house in about a week have been to the hospital or to buy more trashy magazines with which to rot my slowly atrophying brain.) Please imagine the sexy, commercial voice-over dude saying this over a sunset background with frolicking tourists (who all have tiny laproscopic scars on their belly buttons)...

Diseases which the U.S. Customs has at times suspected me of carrying: hoof and mouth, mad cow, bird flu.

Diseases which WebMD, Lindsay J., and Alyson have at one point or another convinced me I have: brain tumor, malaria, premature menopause (really! Ask Lindsay), and bird flu.

Actually contracting a simple and easily fixed problem WHILE I have health insurance: PRICELESS.

See, I'm actually feeling pretty lucky!