Three thoughts

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes 47 seconds

I was wondering what the media’s obsession was with tacking on the words “full-blown” when discussing AIDS.

I questioned how AIDS got saddled with this modifier and if there is such a thing as partial AIDS or half-blown AIDS?

A Google search for “full-blown AIDS” returns 808,000 hits from sites such as the New York Times, the Advocate, BBC, NPR among countless others. What’s the deal? I thought.

Well, as I strolled through my Google search, I discovered this definition from scienceclarified.com:

Full-blown AIDS: The stage of HIV infection in which the immune system is so damaged that it can no longer fight off disease.

OK so perhaps full-blown AIDS is somewhat of an official term.

But given that, the words “full-blown” seem too informal and casual to be associated with a ravaging disease like AIDS.

Situations evolve into full-blown chaos and countries embark in full-blown civil war.

People are full-blown crack addicts and get full-blown drunk. I guess they also get full-blown AIDS.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think corn on the cob should be the official food of the American Dental Association.

It is the only thing in the world that will undoubtedly get me to floss my teeth.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I can understand dialing a wrong number every once in a while. Who hasn’t hit the 9 and the 6 at the same time and for some reason the phone chooses the 9 and not the intended 6?

But ever since we moved to Connecticut and changed our cell phone numbers, Erin has been walloped by a seemingly coordinated attack of wrong numbers.

Possibly the oddest situation to rise from the barrage of mistaken callers are some of the folks who go through and leave messages if Erin doesn’t answer. This despite Erin’s clear and level-headed greeting of Hi, this is Erin. Leave me a message.

Now, if the inaccurate dialer were, say, speeding behind the wheel of a car doing their best not to commit vehicular manslaughter while late for the dentist and all they could muster was a quick Heygivemeacall, that would be one thing.

But some messages are thought out and contain important information. They have gone something like this:

Hi, this is Erin. Leave me a message

“Hi Bob, this is Maxine. I just wanted you to know that my father died. I know that you were very close to him too so I wanted you to know. I wanted you to know that I still love you and that I’m going to Puerto Rico next week. I’ll try to get a hold of you . . .

Or there was this guy:

Hi, this is Erin. Leave me a message

Hey Veronica, it’s Greg. Hey I heard you bought a multi-million dollar house! Uh, I’d like to come by and see it some time. I’ve been thinking about you lately and still really care about you so, uh, give me a call. Bye.

It’s as if these people set aside an hour on a Sunday to sit down and make a pride-eating phone call to a former love while breaking years of silence only to be forced to curb their emotions, quickly compose themselves and ad-lib on the spot into a phone machine.

Someone else’s phone machine at that. If only they knew.