We wouldn't mind worrying about swine flu if swine flu were all we had to worry about. But no, media reports have increasingly referred to something called H1N1 flu.

This new illness (pronounced correctly as either "hini" or "hone-none") is about as dangerous as swine flu. It should discourage you even from shaking hands with Russell Crowe, Denzel Washington or Jake Gyllenhaal if you run into them during their local filming. If a Hollywood star does interrupt a scene to try to shake hands with you, as they often do to try to curry favor with fans, just give a polite salute or curtsy or run as fast as you can in the opposite direction.

(Editor's note: Swine flu and H1N1 flu are one and the same. This writer has no idea what he's talking about, including pronunciations or friendliness of movie stars.)

Oh, thank you, Mr. Editor. You seem so very smug and annoying with all of your technical medical knowledge. We hope you get a flu shot and become much sicker from it than the flu itself would ever make you. We would call that ironic, except every time we put "ironic" in a column, you change it because you say we've only described a coincidence instead.

(Editor's note: That's true, but in this case, "irony" would be the appropriate word.)

Forget it -- let's write about something where the editor stops intruding. Sheesh.

What we're really frightened about after reading last Monday's Post-Gazette is the possibility that a neighbor has an exotic pet without us knowing about it. A front-page story described incidents in which Pennsylvanians were keeping bears, mountain lions, wolf hybrids, Asian bearcats and other creatures around the house, with sometimes fatal results.

As far as we can tell, the owners of these "pets" fall into one of two categories: naive or psychotic. Since most of our neighbors fit one profile or both, all of them are under suspicion. If we're annoyed by the late-night barking of Mrs. McGrady's beagle, for instance, is that merely its way of telling us she has a 14-foot boa constrictor on the loose?

We'd laugh off such possibilities, if not for reading of how Florida's population of pythons and anacondas is on the rise, damaging the local ecosystem and threatening to start moving north. A U.S. Geologic Survey report indicated that the large slitherers "travel long distances." Since we are a long distance from Florida, it makes sense to begin worrying about them.

As if that weren't enough, some Florida Fish and Wildlife officer brought a 5-foot alligator to show-and-tell at his daughter's school in Panama City Beach Friday, only to have it escape. If this were a Pixar film, the alligator would team up with a python and anaconda, with their voices perhaps done by Crowe, Gyllenhaal and Washington, and they'd travel to Pittsburgh together on some zany quest.

As it is, all these loose reptiles are scaring the bejeebers out of us much more than swine flu.

We'd tell our youngsters at home stories about northbound, travel-loving pythons just to keep them in line -- the kids, not the snakes -- if they weren't already so terrified by our ladybugs.

We've never ourselves gazed upon a ladybug with anything but admiration of its roundness and colors and dots and seemingly quiet contentment with its lot in life. As cute as a puppy, but causing less mess.

But way up high in the house, in the bedroom that faces the mid-day sun, there's a teenage girl who shrieks almost nightly about the ladybugs swarming (her description of any group exceeding one) on, outside or inside her window. Sometimes substituting for the ladybugs are "stink bugs," not as adorable but just as harmless.

"These home invaders may be a nuisance in the fall, but they don't pose any harm to humans or to property," acting state Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding said in a recent press release unread by teen girl. "They simply enter homes this time of year looking for a warm place to escape the cold winter months."

There are Hitchcockian stories recently of some households across the Midwest dealing with hundreds of ladybugs congregating at a time -- real swarms instead of the microscopic swarms bothering this one girl.

And in some cases, those very same households this fall have someone diagnosed with swine flu. Now isn't that ironic?

(Editor's note: No, that's coincidence.)

Oh, shut up.

Looking for more from the Post-Gazette? Join PG+, our members-only web site. You'll get exclusive sports content, opinion, financial information, discounts from retailers and restaurants, and more. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.