Cooties

Be careful folks. The dreaded childhood "disease" of cooties is invading cyberspace. It is highly contagious and greatly feared.

The Clinton Administration Declared Cooties a Security Threat "This is not just a medical issue," Clinton said in a prepared statement."This becomes an issue of National Security, because, ever since the Kennedy administration, it has been U.S. policy not to negotiate with anyone that has Cooties."

The only protection against cooties for those who have not reached adulthood is to get a cootie shot. This shot can be self administered and is free so don't worry about medical coverage. All you need to do is draw two circles on your arm with your index finger, and then place one dot inside each circle while chanting "circle circle dot dot, now I've got my cootie shot".

If your the type that is afraid of shots you can always try making a cootie catcher and eliminating them that way. Our fellow blogger OhCrap gave these directions:

Get a piece of paper and make sure it's cut in a perfect square. If you have 8 1/2 X 11 piece of tablet paper cut it down to 8 1/2 X 8 1/2. Fold the paper in half and crease it good. Open it and then fold it in half the other way and crease it good.

Open it again to see the pie wedge shapes between the creases and then fold the wedges toward the center so you have a smaller square. Flip your smaller square over and fold the corners toward the middle so you have an even smaller square. The bottom of that smaller square will now have 4 openable flaps to slide your thumbs and booger fingers into. After you do that then smush all 4 fingers toward each other until the paper forms a peak. (If you can't do that easily then you need to take the fingers out and press the creases of the small square again.)

After you form the peak you can point your index fingers away from you and thumbs toward you at the same time then close. Now try pulling your right thumb & finger to the right and left to the left and keep going back and forth.

Unlike measles, mumps or chicken pox, however, cooties are completely imaginary so the very best way to avoid them is to just grow up.