I sniffle, hack, wheez and ask: How so?
“Everybody I meet,” she says, “feels ‘something coming on,’ or holds their head or frets about their allergies.” She rolls her bright blue eyes.
“That’s all you people ever talk about.”
Later, as I’m googling dengue fever, I realize she’s right.
We are a nation of neurotics. Perhaps we’re still jumpy from SARS, or it’s our winters, or our penis envy of the U.S., or our cushy health care. We never met a symptom we didn’t like.
And, now, I feel another “something coming on.” Likely, you feel it, too.
Lurching heart, fevered brow, buggy eyes, muscle spasms, cold sweats? What is it? Swine flu? West Nile? Hockey withdrawal? Worse.
Trudeaumania. A serious case.
Once, when I was young and even stupider, I had a dose. My mom had it, too. She swooned when Pierre Elliott Trudeau came to Scarborough in the late ‘60s.
My first federal vote was cast for PET.
(Ed. note: Strobel, you’re fired! Oh, wait, there’s a statute of limitations.)
Easy, boss, we all had it back then. It spread like wild oats. You couldn’t help it. There was no Trudeaumaniacs Anonymous.
And it’s like malaria. It comes back.
The new tsetse fly is Pierre’s son, Justin, 40. He is expected to run for the Liberal leadership, though he is a greenhorn. Only Trudeaumania explains his lofty approval ratings across Canada.
On Thursday, a Forum Research poll for the National Post said the Liberals, now the third party, would win a federal election with Justin at the helm.
That’s just sick. It’s like a post-traumatic stress disorder flashback.
Justin is but seven years younger than his dad was during the first wave of Trudeaumania. The face of the affliction has not even changed much. See above.
Likely you are asking: “Dr. Mikey, you survived the first outbreak, so what should we watch for?”
If you are female, it may be too late, as it was too late for my mom.
One more photo of Justin with tousled hair, smouldering eyes, toothy smile and unbottoned shirt, and it’s game over.
Research into an antidote involving sexy pictures of Stephen Harper and Thomas Mulcair does not look promising.
My only advice is to wait ‘til Justin stops tossing his head and speaks on foreign policy. Hopefully, this will snap you right out of it.
Also, do not watch any TV. The camera loves Justin. So do the people who come with the camera.
This country’s mostly liberal media is highly susceptible to Trudeaumania, especially when it smiles and winks at them.
Also, I’d shun Twitter until after the next federal election. Trudeau has 151,039 followers as of late Thursday and they all gush and hang on his every tweet. It’s like any pop idol. Justin Bieber has more than 28 million hypnotized followers all humming “baby, baby, baby.”
Harper is the only MP with more followers, 247,741. But he has fewer gushers.
Harpersteria just hasn’t caught on.
The prime minister should try quivering his lips.
Warning: Trudeaumania has nasty after-effects, as I recall from the first outbreak. It is like dengue fever. Early euphoria is replaced by bloating, thriftlessness, linguistic confusion, separation anxiety and bad gas tax.
Perhaps my Irish chum has the best remedy. Think you feel a touch of Trudeaumania coming on?
“Get over it, ye gobsh--e, get over it.”
