I went to Mexico

(and all I got was this darn swine flu)

Is there anything cooler than pandemic paraphernalia? The answer is no; the question, rhetorical.

Eleven days and a thousand patients later, the H1N1 virus has “spread” to the entrepreneurs of marketing, who started to deploy, since last Friday, several items to “remember” the global epidemic known as swine flu.

The Web site www.zazzle.com offers at least two dozen different models of shirts with messages like: “I went to Mexico and all I got was swine flu,” “Pandemic World Tour ’09” or “Swinebusters,” as well as key chains, mugs, hats, ties, aprons.

In some cases the Mexican flag is also invoked, but the symbols of an eagle devouring a snake have been replaced with a pig.