need a creative boost?

As a socially responsible blogger, you should do your part to model healthy behaviors to our nation's youth. "But Jim," you say, "I'm no good at that. My ideas are trivial or dull. What can I do?"

Enter the Centers for Disease Control. Scores of important and pressing topics, tips, and story prompts: AIDS and other STDs in Youth, Alcohol Use and Pregnancy, Allergies, Anthrax, Antibiotic Resistance in Nursing Homes and Day Care Centers, Asthma, Asthma in Children, and Autism. And that's just the letter A.

How about "Bat Bites and Rabies" as a humdinger of a story germ? (No, the good kind of germ.)

The parents of a young child are awakened at night by strange noises in their child's bedroom. They find a bat behaving strangely: not hiding, making strange noises, having difficulty flying. The parents kill the bat and awaken the child. They find no evidence of a bite or scratch from the bat, and the child reports no contact with or bite from the bat. The father saves the bat in the freezer, "just in case." A few weeks later, the child becomes very ill, with fever and flu-like symptoms. The distraught parents rush the child to a nearby hospital emergency room where they are asked about contact with animals. The parents tell doctors about the bat; the doctors suspect rabies. After consultation with the state health department, the doctor seeing the child asks the parents to bring in the bat. It tests positive for rabies and the parents are told their child will not survive.

Alternative Ending: Being cautious, the parents take the child to a hospital emergency room immediately after finding and trapping a bat in the bedroom. Doctors consult the state health department; the bat is tested for rabies and found to be rabid. Rabies shots are administered (vaccine and immune globulin immediately) and four additional doses of vaccine are given over the next month. The child recovers.

Here's how the story might play out "for reals."

"Do you hear those strange noises coming from Cameron's bedroom?" Jen nudged her husband, who mumbled something about puberty and rolled over. Jen insisted. "Sounds like squeaking and flapping."

"Honey, it's nothing to be concerned--"

"Nonsense, Paul," said Jen. "I'm going to check it out." She leapt out of bed and strolled across the hall. To her horror, a furry flying creature was hopping about on the carpet, not hiding, making strange noises, and trying unsuccessfully to fly out the open window.

"Kill it," shrieked Jen to Paul, who had stumbled into the bedroom behind her. His nightgown flowing about him, Paul chased the bat around the room, tripping on Cameron's X-Box and stubbing his toe.

"Sheep!" shouted Paul. "Gosh darn it! Holy heck!" He grabbed a baseball bat and smashed it into the fruit bat, which now lay in a bloody pool on the floor, dead. Cameron, in a hypnopompic stupor, rubbed his eyes and stared in disbelief.

Jen examined Cameron for bites or scratches, and, finding none, told Paul to get rid of the bat. "No way!" said Paul. "I'm going to put it in a Ziploc bag in the freezer. Just in case."

"You absolutely will not," said Jen. "That's gross."

"Ick," Cameron observed.

Paul, with a brisk "Whatever," went downstairs to enact his plan.

Three weeks later, Cameron came home from school complaining about fever and flu-like symptoms. Paul told him to suck it up, while Jen said she'd take him to the hospital. "Just in case," she added. Paul frowned.

Later that evening, after several tests, the doctor announced that Cameron had contracted rabies and would be dead within a few days. He was right. Paul and Jen spent their remaining five years together despising themselves and each other.

Alternative Ending: Paul and Jen took Cameron to the emergency room the same night of the bat-fight. Doctors, testing the bat for rabies and administering rabies shots to luckless Cameron, were able to save his life. Paul and Jen's relationship, though, was given three to six years. It lasted five.

See how simple it is? Give it a try! When you're done, send me the link. We'll have a unique micro-carnival, the Carnival of CDC Edutainment.