If you give a mouse E. coli

Be on the lookout for diseased NYC mice. They’re somewhere out there.

Who among us hasn’t cried watching An American Tail? (It’s OK, the Internet can’t see you nodding.) Fievel Mousekewitz, a young mouse from Russia, emigrates to America to escape Cossack cats and ends up separated from his family in New York City. Of course it’s sad — because Fievel is an illegal immigrant carrying superbugs.

A study of mice throughout New York City reveals that Fievel’s great-great-great-great-great … (mouse generations are ridiculous) … great-grandchildren are carrying disease-causing bacteria, including a few antibiotic-resistant germs.

Three percent of the mice carried Salmonella bacteria, 14 percent carried disease-causing Shigella, 12 percent carried the food poisoning germ Clostridium perfringens, 4 percent carried enteropathogenic Escherichia coli and 4 percent carried Clostridium difficile, a notorious cause of often-fatal chronic diarrhea.

“Often-fatal chronic diarrhea.” Clearly, crying our lungs out at their songs wasn’t enough for these Trojan mice.

If you see signs of mice in your domicile, it is critical to take steps to either catch or kill them and clean up all possible surfaces with bleach to disinfect contagion due to urine and feces. And we have to act fast before these vermin go west.

Police deny existence of shape-shifting tiger in NYC

The animals have always played fair, agreeing not to change into other animals — until now. If you live in New York City, now is a good time to panic.

A tiger, a real tiger, was reported on the streets of Harlem yesterday, sending authorities into a confusing and dangerous search. Residents were alerted on their phones to the danger of a loose tiger, and urged to stay indoors. Not long after, police said the beast was really just a raccoon, not a tiger. Yes, the NYPD wants us to believe that someone saw a raccoon, thought it was a tiger, and was so panicked that he or she called authorities, rather than just admitting that there is a dangerous tiger out there that has the ability to change its form.

For all we know, it could have turned itself into a human.

New York City is running dangerously low on snacks

A few weeks back, we learned that Johannesburg, South Africa is expected to run out of water in April due to a severe drought. But New York City is facing a crisis far worse: it’s running out of Cheetos.

Stores across the city are running low on Cheetos because of a labor dispute with delivery drivers. Frito-Lay recently cut the pay of its drivers in the New York City area, prompting a fair amount of them to quit. The worker shortage has caused less frequent deliveries, which means stores are running out of Frito-Lay products.

So as you sit at the dinner table tonight, surrounded by loved ones, and polish off a bag of Doritos, remember the less fortunate.

Ask Dr. Snee: Snowed in with your letters

Why, hello there, patient readers. Like everyone else in the DC area, I’ve been pretending to be snowed in by rain and two very wet inches of snow.

You know how they started naming winter storms this year? We called ours the Snowquester. Get it? Because people who live within 100 miles of the nation’s capitol only exist from one political event to another.

It's not like I'm going anywhere in this pretend snow car.
It’s not like I’m going anywhere in this pretend snow car.

So, while I try to remember that, essentially, man is good (even when they name everything with puns based on terms from Civics class), I figured I’d answer a few letters. As always, thanks for emailing instead of licking envelopes during the cold and flu season.  Continue reading Ask Dr. Snee: Snowed in with your letters

NYC travelling window briefly opened and closed

So, you know, fuhgeddaboudit.

New York City managed to have a red letter day, as in no red letters were spelled out in blood on their many sidewalks or studio-apartment hardwood floors. That’s right: New Yorkers managed to not kill each other for an entire 36 consecutive hours, which police are calling “a case of that one Monday.”

Nobody is entirely sure why NYC’s assassins took a Senior Skip Day, but it is part of an overall trend of decreasing violent crime nationwide. Still, for 8 million people who presumably relive Seinfeld every damn day, it’s commendable that not one took a Festivus pole to their group’s George. (Or smelly cat to their Phoebe if you grew up on Friends.)

Of course, like all good things, this, too, had to end. By Tuesday morning, the city’s last nerve was trampled, ending in a good ol’ fashioned shooting. Oh, and Lindsay Lohan slapped somebody.

So, if you’ve been waiting for a safe time to visit the Big Apple, that train has re-derailed. It was a good run, everybody!

Creationists officially become my new enemies of the week

Ho-boy, creationists just became the top of Chris Taylor’s Poop List. New York City’s Department of Education has announced words that it may ban in all standardized testing for its schools. Two examples are “birthday” and “Halloween,” and don’t get me wrong, those are big words to ban, especially because of potentially offending religions.

But there’s another word that’s being bandied about as being banned and that is an action that cannot be condoned: dinosaur.

EVERY SINGLE BOY BETWEEN THE AGES OF 4 AND 58 LOVES DINOSAURS. Dinosaurs were the most amazing creatures ever as a child. To ban their use, simply to not offend creationists, a form of religion that science has proven to be stupid, is offensive to me.

Make the smart move NYDoE: don’t ban the dinosaur.

Crazy woman crazily sues NYC for crazy amount

Just off the top of your head, how much might you say New York City is worth? 1 billion dollars? 2 billion? 50 billion?

What about 900 trillion dollars? One more question: just how much is that?

All these questions and more should be directed toward one Fausat Ogunbayo, a mother from Staten Island that’s now suing the famous city for the paltry amount of 900 trillion dollars. That’s trillion as in “the national debt is in the double digit trillions.” In a decision made by the Administration for Children’s Services, Ogunbayo, who has decided to represent herself, had her children placed in foster care in 2008, which has apparently led to the most hellish 3 years ever seen.

The decision to remove the children may have been a good one.

In court papers, the ACS references several peculiar incidents where Ogunbayo sought out medical treatment because she believed her children’s skin color was becoming darker due to radiation.

That tends to be something called tanning.

There’s no infestation like a New York City infestation …

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that, despite the city’s best efforts, you just can’t kill off a New Yorker infestation. “Babies born in New York City in 2009 can expect to live on average 80.6 years, roughly 2-1/2 years more than the most recently reported national rate of 78.2 years,” the mayor told members of the press, ruefully shaking his head.

It was hoped that, by shortening human lifespans, this research would lead to a cure for the city’s bed bug problem — a plan that animal rights activists hailed as a fun exercise in role reversal. Alas, all of the Mayor Bloomberg’s initiatives, “including bans on public smoking and the use of trans-fats in restaurants,” have only resulted in more New Yorkers living longer neurotic lives.

“If you want to live longer and healthier than the average American, then come to New York City,” the mayor said before distributing cyanide capsules and pistols to his staff. “Me? I want off this merry-go-round, and I’ll do the same for anyone else.”

It’s a Rat Island In the Sun

New York City is an interesting town. Oh, sure, you’ve got the sprawl and awe-inspiring vistas of Times Square; however, then you’ve got some of the parts of the city that aren’t so pretty. One of those places would be the aptly named Rat Island.

Now, mind you, there aren’t any actual rats on the island itself, but more a gigantic amount of rocks.

Well, now it’s time for that pile of rocks to be renamed into something else! A New Yorker has purchased the island for a mere 160 grand. The owner, Alex Schibli, can do whatever he likes with the land mass. We’d suggest naming it something other than Rat Island, if only to take back that horrid name from the animals. Symbolic victories can count just as much as physical ones at times.

So that’s how it is in their school

B.M.C. Durfee High School in Fall River, Mass., has employed a new tactic for getting chronically tardy and truant students into class:

The best part, though? New York City schools use a wake-up call recorded by Magic Johnson, making robo-phone sex the safest sex you could ever have with the former NBA all-star.