How useful for me to contract the hybrid/swine flu this week! It allows me to give a special "insider's perspective" of it all. (If you're going to get ill, get the "it" illness, right?)

I think I got the bug somewhere around the time I was stuck in a small room with Joe Biden. I followed him closely with a boom mic as he toured a domestic violence call center in Austin on Tuesday. He didn't take any questions. Two days later, I remembered why it's best not to let Biden answer questions.

As hysteria over the swine/hybrid flu reached into a new stratosphere, Biden, in his off-the-kuffness, accidentally told Americans to stop using mass transit.

When this all started Tuesday, I decided I'd beat it with a mojito and additional consumption of iceberg lettuce. Wrong. By Wednesday, my symptoms were exacerbated a migraine, only the third one of my life. Kept trying to work, writing about the killer flu while suffering from it at the same time.

Coworkers insisted I go home on Thursday since snot was getting all over the workstations and it sounded like my lungs might explode from my chest every time I coughed.

Of course, all my dreams of being a swine flu patient came crashing down this morning. The doctor said I have bronchitis.