So maybe the sky isn't falling.

For a few weeks there, I thought it might be. See, we had a bit of a bird flu scare here in Dubai.

I didn't want to write about it because there wasn't much I could do and I didn't want to scare people (i.e. my parents and other family members who read this).

And I don't know about you, but the thought of a world-wide pandemic of a virus that kills 60% of all infected humans scares the living daylights out of me.

Apparently back in November our neighbors in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia "culled" two batches of birds at poultry farms. I like how they call it "culled" and not "massacred" or "slaughtered" or "butchered" or even "exterminate".

Regardless, somehow I wasn't watching the news closely enough for the bird flu and I didn't know this.

Of course, Liz being overly protective of my fragile emotional state (think Chicken Little) didn't tell me, either. Thus I was on my own to discover it one day at Carrefour a few weeks ago. A customer was asking one of the workers where the eggs were. He gave her a blank stare, which I assumed meant he didn't speak English. True story - the employees all wear vests and shirts that say "How can I help you?" (in English) on the back, yet 90-something percent don't speak English. Seems a little foolish to me.

So anyway, to be helpful, I pointed the lady to the egg aisle.

She said, "they're not there, I checked."

Well gosh, how can a huge grocery store be out of eggs? I just shrugged and walked off.

But when I passed the egg aisle, she was right. There were no eggs.

Odd.

That night I mentioned to Liz, "Hey, I think Carrefour was out of eggs today."

Then she dropped the bird flu story on me.

See, the UAE imports most of its poultry and eggs from Saudi. And when Saudi "culls" a good portion of their poultry, well, we don't get any. Not that we'd want any, anyway.

I guess since Thanksgiving the problem has escalated, so much that Saudi has called a state of emergency and made the best Arabic website ever. Seriously, you have to go to it, even if you don't understand Arabic. It's got tons of photos of important-looking men in dish-dashes and lots of black and white photos of chickens. Oh, and a scrolling text bar of Arabic.

And I think the rooster in the banner is crying.

Yeah, he's totally crying.

Probably because all of his hens have been culled.

Because you know that's how they roll in Saudi - they "cull" all the lady chickens who might have bird flu, but let the boy chickens live even if they're coughing and wheezing, or whatever the symptoms of bird flu are.

Either way, just this week Saudi "culled" 13,500 ostriches, bringing the total of "culled" birds to 4.5 million.

Mmmm, all this talk of "culling" has gotten me hungry. Time to go make some Captain Crunch Chicken ... with a side of Tamiflu Creole Mustard Sauce.