onkeypox, the African virus spreading through the Midwestern U.S. by way of human contact with infected pet prairie dogs, would make a bitchin’ name for a new movie, announced health officials today when asked if there were any new developments in the outbreak.

“I’d expect it to be in theaters by late this summer, if some TV movie doesn’t snatch up the name first,� explained CDC head Sumner Alimony. “Actually, it would have been perfect for that Outbreak movie with Kevin Spacey and those sick monkeys a few years back, too bad they can’t go back in time and rename that one. True, we’re mainly dealing with sick prairie dogs right now, but monkeys are way more marketable, plus then you don’t have to explain why your sick prairie dog movie is called Monkeypox. People would probably think Prairiedogpox was a foreign film or something boring like that. And prairie dogs aren’t really monkey-level scary, unless you get the camera really super close to their faces.�

Twelve human cases of monkeypox have been reported nationwide so far, with 53 more pending testing: 25 in Indiana, 17 in Wisconsin and 11 in Illinois. One additional case was suspected in New Jersey, but turned out to be a false alarm after a Papa John’s pizza delivery driver called in sick with the complaint that “Dude, I’m sick as shit. I got Monkeyballs.� According to the Centers for Disease Control, the driver later turned out to have a combination of a hangover and athlete’s foot unrelated to the exotic pet scare.

Undisclosed federal rat-disease-tracing techniques have sourced the outbreak back to infected prairie dogs sold by Phil's Pocket Pets of Villa Park, Illinois, a small exotic pets dealer who has been inundated with faxed Polaroids of infected genital lesions marked with messages like “Thanks a lot, asshole,� ever since the outbreak began. According to Phil of pocket pet fame, the prairie dogs were infected by a Gambian giant rat, also known as a Gambian pouch rat, also known as an African Holy Shit rat, also known as a What the Cock is That Under the Sink rat.

The outbreak has renewed debate over lax restrictions governing the importation of exotic pets in recent years, and onto which of the lowest social rungs their owners desperately cling. Besides prairie dogs and numerous varieties of unsavory international rats, owners of other ridiculous exotic pets such as the Polynesian Scum Shrew, the Tasmanian Screaming Hedgehog, the European Couch Mouse and poodles have been fighting for their right to purchase, grow bored with, and then discard trendy non-domesticated animals.

New fears have arisen in recent days over monkeypox being transmitted from humans to other humans (as happens daily in Africa and other monkey-fucking cultures) and not just between infected prairie dogs and humans who don’t have the common sense not to stick their finger in a prairie dog’s mouth.

“Man, you gotta be sick already to fuck a prairie dog, I don’t care what anybody says,� stated a nearby teenager claiming to speak for the CDC.

Government health officials have recommended smallpox shots for all people exposed to the monkeypox virus, thinking that using the vaccine for a similarly-named ailment sounds about as good as anything. Other officials have recommended not sticking your dick in holes in the ground, though it was unclear whether or not they represented the federal government’s official stance on hole-dicking.

Thankfully for you, the eager readers, nobody blew up any giant mammals on the international scene this week and we can finally get down to the nitty gritty dirt band on Omar Bricks' adventures through the afterlife. For those of you interested in the full sensory experience, I'd recommend putting Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" on infinite repeat while you read the column. If you read it at the correct rate of speed I think you'll find things syncing up in some pretty mind-blowing ways. If you're a slow reader or retarded or something, I can't promise it won't make you dizzy or colossally sick, so sync at your own risk here people.

Longtime Bricks fans, or newer fans with the cajones to dig deep into the archives, will no doubt remember back in 2002 when the Bricksmobile went all Casino on me and engulfed half of my neighborhood in flames, blowing yours truly into my neighbor Dale's azaleas. Thanks to the intense charring within the blast radius, some cocky son of a bitch from the fire department decided nobody could have lived through the explosion, and after I loudly agreed the police took that as gospel and Omar Bricks was legally dead. At the time I thought it would just be a funny lark and a cool way to mess with pizza delivery guys, but it turned out to be a real godsend when all my neighbors tried to sue the recently-departed Omar Bricks for fucking up their houses. Wouldn't you know it was their shitty luck that Omar's twin cousin from Cuba who was watching the house indefinitely hadn't inherited any of the vast Bricks fortune.

This was all fine and dandy for months until all my appearance of hard work at the commune finally paid off in the form of a company car, which turned out to be a cop magnet even when Red Bagel wasn't driving it. I hadn't been behind the wheel more than three minutes when a cop pulled me over while I was taking a short cut through the park and told me my license had expired. I guess that's one of the down-sides of being legally dead that they don't tell you about when you're bluffing the fire department. There should be a law, but what are you going to do?

The next day I go down to the DMV to perform the seemingly-simple task of proving I'm still alive so I won't have to walk out in the cold every time I want to go down to the DQ for a scoop. I figured this would be fairly easy, considering that me even showing up at the DMV proves to all but the biggest of idiots that I am, in fact, alive. Being the stand-up supporter of democracy that I am, I decided to make things even easier on the powers that be by standing up on the counter at the DMV, holding up my death certificate, and announcing "Omar Bricks is Dead, Long Live Omar Bricks!" to the huddled masses assembled on the DMV killing floor. Most of the idiots there didn't know what the hell was going on, though one dude did clap for a while. I figured my point had been made, and I was on my way to go home and ring in the new Omar Bricks with a toast of Miller High Life when some closeted DMV dude stopped me at the door and told me I'd have to wait in line like all the others shmoes slouching their way toward the guillotine.

I guess I wasn't the only one there who had been mistaken for dead, though from the looks of most of those guys I should've guessed it. So I wait in line like a peasant, hoping the chick up front will spot me in line, remember me from my column or a police line-up somewhere and wave me away like "Dude, you're obviously alive! Get the fuck out of here!" and I'll be all thumbs-up and ass out the door. Well, any of you who've ever been to the DMV know that kind of magic just doesn't go down, and I was in that line for three fuckin' days. You may think I'm exaggerating that figure somewhat for hilarious effect, but I'm shitting you not, three days. Every time I got out of line to take a piss I was stuck at the back again, if I'd known that was going to be the case I wouldn't have loaded up on Hawaiian Punch and pop rocks on the way over, that shit makes you piss like a Hawaiian grandma or something, every ten minutes like a goddamned glockenspiel.

At some point on day three, weak bladders got the best of all the dorks in front of me in line and I finally won a round of DMV Survivor. I grooved my way up to the counter and laid the smooth on the three-headed DMV beast manning that station, who reached deep into her bag of pain and pulled out some bullshit about how I had to go to the city courthouse and get my death certificate revoked and blah blah blah before I could even talk about getting my license renewed. I briefly considered cracking open a big can of profanity on the whole scene, but a cooler part of my head prevailed and I seamlessly transitioned to Plan B.

You'd be surprised how far a good Scarface accent and a black market birth certificate can get you these days. It was enough to get Omar Bricks' mysterious "Coovan" cousin a driver's license, anyway. So remember Polio fans, if you see me behind the wheel of a car or you're talking to the highway patrol, remember one simple slogan: Omar Bricks is Dead, Long Live Navarro Bricks!

Bricks out.

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