Going Viral
The initial question, obviously enough, is how a virus fits into a collection called That's Life, because it isn't at all clear that viruses are living things. They can be insidious, of course, but they don't wiggle or crawl around. Furthermore they don't have cells, they don't reproduce and they don't use energy. Also, they don't seem to respond to their environment outside of binding to receptors on cells and sharing1 their DNA which causes the host cell to make more viruses—more a catalyst than controller.
Our first paragraph didn't get us any closer to an answer, so it was a waste of pixels, or ink if you are reading a print edition of this little fabrication.2
It's true that avian flu viruses get coated with calcium while visiting the intestines of birds which makes it more infectious for humans, but it isn't like the virus intended to mimic M&Ms® any more than an M&M® has volition. (Not counting the M&M® characters who got a makeover in January of this year (2023), when Mars® announced that the anthropomorphized candy characters will have “more nuanced personalities to underscore the importance of self-expression and power of community through storytelling.” Uh huh.)
That paragraph didn't move us along either, and frankly, making the arms and legs of the M&M® characters the same color as their candy coating doesn't seem to go a long way toward either nuance, racial equity, truth, justice or the American way.3
The thing about “going viral” in the modern sense is that it is very much intentional. People create memes in high hopes that they will “go viral,” that others will make copies and pass them along. But that making of copies is intentional as well, whereas when a virus sidles up to a receptor neither the virus nor the cell has any intention whatsoever. So. Where does that leave us?
NOTE PER FOOTNOTES: Substack starts off with new numbering each time I post a story. But Footnotes in the original book are continuous and often refer back to previous super important stuff, So original Footnote #s are included below in []s.
1 [33] “Sharing” sounds active, but it actually just “happens.” meaning that it is pretty passive, like, say, second-hand smoke.
2 [34] Italicized so you know we are saying this en française.
3 [35] Though looking at the new blue limbed candy character does, for no apparent reason, call to mind what one of the Beatles® said in Yellow Submarine®, “Funny you don't look bluish.” In this case, it does.