SW101: I’m sitting here today with Herpes Simplex Virus, type 2.  It has agreed to answer a few questions for SW101 Nation.  Thanks for joining us today, um, is it…Mr. Simplex?

HSV: “Mr.” Simplex.  Sure.  I’ll go with that.  (rolls eyes, muttering “humans”).

SW101:  Tell me, what do you regard as some of your greatest accomplishments, to date?

Mr. Simplex: We’re awesome, basically.  We like to consider ourselves ubiquitous, yet cosmopolitan.  We are particularly fond of the human idea of “make love, not war.”  mmMM.  Huge for us, that one.

SW101:  Ubiquitous?

 

Mr. Simplex:  You got an ulcer on your nether-parts after a groovy night wearing nothing but beer goggles?  Probably us.  Any version of sexually active with any version of human being (we don’t like animals)?  Excellantae!  30% chance we’ll be right there with you.  Me and my posse are hanging out with 30-45 MILLION Americans.  And that just in the, ah, “middle” parts of the human landscape.  We got some cousins who live in the windy North quite happily.  We cross paths from time to time.

SW101:  Wow.  Qute a party.

Simplex: Yep.  And we’re inviting picking up around 300,000 new groupies every year.

SW101:  How’s that?

Simp:  We’re launching out all over the atmosphere much more often than people realize.  Those blistery sores we cause?  Well call ’em “pleasure domes,” referring to what they do for us as well as how our gracious hosts acquired them in the first place.  Anyway, we don’t just blast out from the popping penile blisters.  Usually, we send out early drones before the sore even forms.  We’re terribly proud of this tactic.

SW101:  Soo, when does the ‘party’ end?

Simplex:  That’s the best part.  Pretty much never.

SW101:  Like, never?

Simplex:  Oh sure, we take a break sometimes.  Lots of times, actually.  We hide most of the time.  But once we’re in a body, we don’t really ever leave.

SW101:  What do you hide from?

Simp:  There’s two things we don’t like in this world, and the Great White Army is the main one.

SW101:  Um, you refer to Tsar Ivan III‘s anti-Bolshevik Imperial Russian Army in the 1920’s?

 

Simp:  What?!  What kind of freak-show wonk are you?  No!  The human immune system.  All the cells in that army are white.  Or clear.  Or something.  Scary, those guys.  They can blow us up, eat us, chew us up, spit out pieces of us so their comrades can eat the rest of us…it’s disgusting, really.  It’s like a bad horror movie.  Ugh!  Look at that picture of the immune cell!  Don’t you have any shame?  I didn’t walk in here holding up pictures of car accidents, or guys who accidentally fell into meat grinders, did I?  Why don’t we just sit around and ponder Charles Manson, and all his fabulous exploits?  Oh, actually, that guy was pretty good for us, as I recall.

Anyway, where was I?  (fans self, leans back weakly).  Oh yes, when it’s up and running full-bore, the human immune system it a giant headache for us.  We try to lay low.  No sense in getting our heads knocked off.  The good news is that it gets stretched pretty thin trying to cover all the problems that come up in those unnecessarily complex organisms of yours.  It’s pretty easy to come out and play once the person is stressed, sick, too hot or cold or with some disease that naturally keeps the White Army back in the barracks, so to speak.

SW101:  So, you hide in the nerves, right?

Mr. Simplex:  (looks left and right conspiratorially) Yep.  Broadly speaking.  This is the secret to our survival, by the way.  Our lair.  Your nerves.

SW101:  And, specifically?

Simplex:  Well, you guys have no hope of actually finding us, so I’ll just go ahead and tell you.  My guys hang out in the roots of the nerves that extend from the sacrum.  S2-5, usually.  In the ganglion.  It’s nice there.  Our version of what you’d call waterfront property, I’d imagine.  Our cousins hang out in similar nerves in the face.

SW101:  You mentioned two things you don’t like, what’s the other?

Simplex:  Condoms.  We hate ’em.

SW101:  That bad, huh?  Your great nemesis?

Simplex:  Well, actually, our relationship to them is a bit complicated.  Maybe like Ariel Sharon vs. Yassir Arafat.

SW101:  Surely you’re referring to the Israeli-Palestinian former leaders…both dead now?

 

Simplex:  Dead?  Really?  I don’t think we had anything to do with that.  We try not to kill our hosts…bad for real estate, as you can imagine.  But yeah, them.  They hated each other, but at the same time, they created lots of business for each other too.  Get it?  People don’t like using condoms, for some reason.  But those that do are WAY lax about concerning themselves with us.  Since we don’t just hang out in areas covered by those suffocating, smothering latex udders, we get around pretty well when condoms are in the mix.  People jump into their illicit affairs, thinking they’re safe…and forget to ask anything about us.

So, it’s a love-hate thing.  Overall, condoms are probably pretty good for business.

SW101: So, you hate condoms.  What do you love?

Simples:  Promiscuity.  We’re BFF’s.  Make love, not war, dude.  Preferably, don’t even look down at what you’re doing.

It’s not personal, by the way.  We’re just doing what we are meant to do…which is reproduce.  Everyone who is living with us now should understand that.  It’s one big happy family of organisms doing what they were meant to do…mate, and reproduce.  It’s natural.  When you’re mating…so are we.  All I can say is, sorry for the inconvenience.

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