Yep, that’s right. If someone near you starts talking about your euphemism it means they’re calling you one of two things:

1) If you are male, they’re calling you a sissy.
2) If you are female, they’re calling you a paragon of womanly virtue.

It’s true! Honest!

Do I have to lay it out for you syllable by syllable? ‘Cause I’m not going to.

Ok, fine, I’ll at least point you in the right direction.

Think of the word “euphemism” as “your-fem-ism”.

Get it?

Good. Now stop whining. You’ve already displayed enough euphemistic tendencies for one day.

1. Wash your hands frequently.
2. Wear a surgical mask everywhere, including in bed. (Alternative: grow a heavy beard.)
3. Don’t go to Mexico. (It is best to avoid Mexican restaurants or Mexican foods such as tacos and burritos, as well.)
4. Boil your bacon before frying it.
5. Nail several two-by-fours diagonally across your windows and doors. (This will be more effective if you do it in fast-forward and finish by leaning your back against the door and panting heavily.)
6. Place dark blinds over your windows and keep them closed after nightfall.
7. Don’t go out after dark, and don’t take shortcuts through alleys.
8. Spend your disposable income on regional goods and services.
9. Stick together. Don’t split up: that’s when it gets you. (It is also helpful to stay close to the protagonist.)
10. Build your house out of bricks, not hay. (Practice the phrase “Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin” for added benefit.)

If you do all of these things, you should have nothing to worry about from the Swine Flu (or from robbers, Nazi bombers, gang members, the failing economy, horror movie villains, or the Big Bad Wolf, for that matter).

1. Beans
2. Seagulls
3. Linux
4. Ninja stars
5. Credit cards
6. Clowns
7. Gene Wilder
8. Big Bird
9. The color blue
10. Nitrous oxide

Twitter is no exception. Power-Tweeters, also known as twitter-junkies, or “twunkies”, see Twitter as the Next Big Thing, the platform through which all other platforms will be united in greatness. Twitter is, to them, the Digital Messiah. It is a revolution; it is a rebirth.

Twunkies spend all of their time completely immersed in the “Twitterverse” or “Twittersphere”–some have even been known to post tweets while sleeping! They are addicts; they are captives; they can be dangerous.

In your travels across the internet, it is inevitable that you will run across the occasional twunkie. Though brief contact is unavoidable, under no circumstances should you allow yourself to develop a relationship with a twunkie, no matter how harmless or innocent they may seem. Talking to a twunkie, whether through an @reply or at a coffee shop, is like taking a single hit of crack cocaine: it comes with an initial rush, and may not have immediately significant side effects, but it allows them to get their foot in the door and mark you as a target. Countless thousands have been drawn in by the high follower counts,  the e-famy, and the perpetual euphoria of the twunky lifestyle and have found themselves sucked into a seedy Twunderworld, populated by emaciated, soul-less Twaddicts. Do not be fooled by the empty promises!

It is important to be prepared. Knowing the danger that you face is the first step, but merely knowing is still only half the battle. You need to be able to quickly identify a twunkie and determine what actions are necessary to safely extricate yourself from any contact that has been made with them, before it is too late.

Identifying a Twunkie
There are several signs that will allow you to easily identify a twunkie.

1. They introduce Twitter into casual conversation;
2. They propogate and argue about Twitter-based terminology (the “tweeple” vs. “twits” debate has highly polarized the Power-Tweeter population) and they consider “tw” a proper English prefix meaning “Twitter-based”;
3. They follow more people than are following them;
4. They retweet any post with a link in it;
5. They perpetually have two or more third-party Twitter apps running on their desktop;
6. They own a smart-phone (often solely for the purpose of reducing their Twitter downtime);
7. They posts links to articles about things like How To Increase Your Twitter Productivity and The Future of Social Networking; and
8. They have the words ”social media” in their Bio.

If you run across someone about whom two or more of these items is true, you can be confident that you have found a twunkie. From here, you must evaluate the situation and settle on an appropriate course of action.

What To Do When Confronted by a Twunkie
If you come into contact with a twunkie online, immediately sever all connections. Block the person’s access to your own Twitter feed, block and delete them from your instant messaging friends list, unfriend them on Facebook and MySpace, and clear your browser’s cache and cookies. If you have clicked any of the links the twunkie had posted, it may also be necessary to reinstall your browser. Finally, write the twunkie’s Twitter account name on a piece of scrap paper, take it outside, and burn it, inhaling the smoke. Repeat this last step daily for a week.

If you meet a twunkie face-to-face, the procedure will be very different. Do not simply cut and run: if you too transparent about your wish to escape, they will likely perceive what you are trying to do and take countermeasures. They may even tweet about it, thereby labelling you as an opponent and drawing further attention from the wider twunkie network.

Instead, in a real-world twunkie situation your goal will be to create in the twunkie a reason why they want to permanently distance themselves from you. There are many ways to go about this, ranging from the simple (induced body odour, unsolicited advances, or hinting at violent tendencies) to the sublime (”Would you like to come over later and help me change my Great Aunt’s diaper? There are whole galaxies in there!” or “You would get along so well with my brother-father!”). For additional methods, consult articles and books on “How to Make My Boyfriend/Girlfriend Break Up With Me”, or watch the first half of the movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, starring Steve Martin and Michael Caine.

For more information about power-tweeting and its dangers, send an @reply to @thephatbunny. I can link you to a variety of different resources for how to develop safe tweeting practices.

At this point, I had two options. I could skip breakfast entirely (and deal with the consequences of an unkickstarted metabolism), or I could stop in somewhere on the way into work and buy myself some greasy food.

I chose the latter option and opted for a McDonald’s drive-thru. I ordered an iced tea (no ice) with my meal, because while apple juice and orange juice are generally better early morning choices, the juice varieties McDonald’s carries are subpar representatives of the category.

I paid, drove up to the second window, and received my purchase. As the girl handed me my drink, I heard a disturbing rattle from within the cup: ICE! Not wanting to make waves, I feigned gratitude, put the drink in my cup holder, and sped off to work.

Now why did I present this four-paragraph anecdote to you? I tell you this because I want you to see how easy it is for even the most careful of us to be led astray. Despite the fact that I, like all rational people, ordered my drink with no ice, an error—whether wilful or ignorant—caught me by surprise. I had no prepared response; I hadn’t rehearsed what I would do if I ordered my drink with no ice but was, regardless, given a drink with ice.

Preparedness is the key. Next time, I’ll be ready!

I understand that there may be some readers who question the practice of ordering a drink with no ice. For these people, I would like to present a few of the fundamental tenets of the “No-Ice Beverage” philosophy.

Reasons Why You Should Order Your Drinks Without Ice
Ice Melts
When you order a soft drink at a restaurant, you are not receiving some mystical, pure, elemental substance—Coke, root beer, and iced tea cannot be found on the Periodic Table. Instead, these beverages are well-balanced mixtures of various ingredients, with the most significant ingredient (by volume) typically being water. When you allow ice to be placed into your cup, it may keep your drink cold for a longer period of time. (I say longer because soft drinks are generally acceptably cool for the first five or ten minutes after purchase, even without ice.) However, it doesn’t take long for ice in a cup to begin to melt, releasing more flavourless liquid into your beverage and throwing off the stable, measured ratio of solvents to water. This is unacceptable, though if you finish your drink quickly enough you can often avoid the most significant of the dilution.

Reduced Value
There are no two ways about it: ice takes up space in your cup. When you order a 20-ounce drink and receive a cup with five ounces of ice in it, then you are really only receiving a 15-ounce drink. This is foolishness! When you order your drink without ice, you maximize the volume of your beverage. There are some places where the employees will simply press the auto-fill button, which will only fill your cup 80% full, but most of the time the employee will manually top off your cup to the proper 95% to 98% mark.

Occasions on Which Ordering Ice in Your Drink is Acceptable
Delay Between Purchase and Consumption
If you are the kind of person who takes a long time to finish your drink, or if there is going to be a delay of ten minutes or more between the time you receive the beverage and the time you are able to consume it, then allowing the restaurant to put ice in your drink is acceptable for the sake of maintaining its temperature.

Sit-Down Restaurants
It is also acceptable to allow a sit-down restaurant to place ice in your glass if they offer free refills. In this scenario, the reduced volume of beverage in your glass is a non-issue, since you can simply have the glass refilled at no extra charge.

Moderation in Everything
People who order their drinks with no ice are part of a global brotherhood, a worldwide family of rational thinkers. There are some people, though—if, indeed, you would call them “people” at all—who order their drinks without ice and intentionally allow their drink to cool. They enjoy and even prefer lukewarm drinks. These individuals are criminally insane. If you find yourself in a situation where someone around you expresses a preference for room-temperature beverages, be sure to calmly take the following steps:

• Make eye-contact with any others who have heard the lunatic’s confession, to determine whether anyone else sympathizes with what was said;
• Slowly back away from the crazed individual and any sympathizers;
• Remove your cell phone from your pocket, if you have one, pretending that you are receiving a call;
• Surreptitiously dial the number for your local emergency services (in most of North America this number is 9-1-1); and
• Speak the following words to the operator: “Oh, hi, Grandma! Yes, the weather is unusually tepid here at!”

When the operator hears you complete this code-phrase, they will immediately dispatch a SWAT team to the address you’ve specified. Until help arrives, you should be careful not to make any sudden moves or do anything that might be perceived by the crazy nutjob as a threat. If attacked, curl into a ball and protect your head. Above all, do not try to run!

If you have any questions that were not answered in this document, please feel free to ask! Not everyone has been gifted with a clear and reasoning mind in this area; there are many false doctrines vying for control of our beverage-purchasing allegiances. Do not be embarrassed! We all have our failings.