WHEN PIGS FLY

What’s so funny about this? This little joke has a LOT that needs explaining if you don’t know the vocabulary or some of the context. Let’ start with pigs not being able to fly. That seems pretty straight forward. But, it’s not; in fact, it actually refers to a well-known sarcastic expression similar to “when hell freezes over.” Both of them mean “it will never happen”. For example an alcoholic might swear to a friend that she’ll stop drinking; if the friend answers “when pigs fly,” then that friend doesn’t believe she’ll ever be able to stop. But this joke is not about booze. It’s about a guy who’s sick in the hospital, perhaps with a serious condition known as swine flu. “Flu”, spelled f-l-u, in this case refers to influenza, a disease in pigs caused by a virus. Humans have their own types of flu, a viral disease similar to a severe cold. But human flu is not caused by the same virus. In general, humans can’t catch swine flu except in a few rare instances. When it does happen the di