Uh-oh, it's . . .

The Boston Market Story

Piglet dropped from new edition of Winnie the Pooh

    By BOB "KEN" GROOVY

    Staff Writer

    WEST WOODLAND HILLS, N.J. -- Swine flu panic hit epidemic proportions today as Barnes & Kenoble removed all pictures of Piglet from its editions of "Winnie the Pooh," President Barack "Ken" Obama ordered Congress quarantined after Democrats and Republicans alike introduced pork into his $5 trillion budget, Blockbuster Video burned several thousand copies of "Babe" and the Paper Mill Playhouse quarantined a matinee audience attending a performance of "Days of Swine & Roses." In Russia, chess champion Garry Kasparov was sent to Siberia after responding to an opponent's move of K3P2 with the feared H1N1 defense. And the entire New York Giants football team was quarantined after coming into contact with head coach Tom Coughlin. Only wide receiver Plaxico Burress was allowed to practice because he'd already had a shot.

    "As the sun disappears over the horizon like a Tiger Woods tee shot," Herald Record of North West Woodland Hills columnist Michael Kenney wrote in his blog this evening, "Osama bin Laden is dancing in his cave in the Swat Valley after successfully unleashing swine flu on the American population."

    "Excuse me, Mister Kenney," responded a reader whose screen name was Achmed, "but how can you call this a terrorist plot when it originated in Mexico?"

    "Because thousands of people have been Qurantined," Kenney blogged.

    "Phone call for you, Mike," announced Tom "Tom" Vaubourg from the newspaper's clerk desk.

    "Kenney here," Kenney said.

    "Mike, this is the copy desk," said Mike "Jerry" Kozmic, one of the paper's copy editors. "Is Qurantined CQ?"

    "See what?" Kenney said.

    "I think you mean Quarantined with an 'A,' " Kozmic said.

    "Eh?" Kenney said.

    " 'Q-U-A,' " Kozmic said.

    "Q-U too," Kenney said, and hung up."

    Meanwhile, on a beach in Queensland, Australia, the crew of a World War II era American submarine debated what to do after its radio operator, Casey "Charles" Byrne, reported receiving several dots and dashes emanating from San Francisco. If the sub went to investigate, reasoned Captain Gabriel "Joba" Voorhis, his crew might be exposed to swine flu when they could wait out the pandemic on the nearby island of Pulau Numismatiga with the cast of "Survivor 2005," which was abandoned by CBS when the director and five producers were eaten by crocodiles.

    The point became moot when the submarine was sent to the rescue of an American aircraft carrier that was hijacked by Somali pirates after one of the pirates claimed to have swine flu and threatened to cough on the boarding party. The rescue became unnecessary, however, when several trained seals, riding on a humpback whale, tossed beachballs containing vials of Tamiflu to the aircraft carrier's crew. The pirates were then overpowered while they were watching reruns of "Gilligan's Island" on a 42-inch HDTV in the aircraft carrier's lounge.

    And hero pilot Chesley "Ken" Sullenberger was forced to land a jumbo jet in the Hudson River for the second time after a 300 pound potbellied pig was sucked into an engine of his Boeing 727.

    "I don't know how he did it but that swine flew," Sullenberger told photomojo Thomas "Ken" Franklin as he raised an American flag on the plane's wing with the help of two New York City firefighters.   

    Back in New Jersey, noted obituarian Jason Q. Levin was quarantined in a former broom closet that served as the city room of the Herald Record of Northwest Woodland Hills so as to be on the case should Bergen or Passaic County suffer its first swine flu death. Also squeezed into the former broom closet were several hungry copy editors who had ordered the guacamole surprise from the Potrero Grill.

            - - - -

Chickie says: What do you get when you squeeze several hungry copy editors, a renowned obituarian and a noted numismatologist into a broom closet?*

*A pundemic.**

**836 cases of swine flu worldwide, says WHO

Says WHO?

WHO says

That's what I said, says WHO?

The United Nations held a press conference, and WHO was on first

WHAT?

No, WHAT was on second. WHO was on first

What you're talking about, I DON'T KNOW

I DON'T KNOW's on third.