It’s time once again for our popular consumer health feature, “You Should Be More Nervous.”

Today we’re going to address an alarming new trend, even scarier in some ways than the one we discussed several years ago concerning the danger of airplane toilets sucking out your intestines (if you had forgotten about that one, we apologize for bringing it up again, and we ask you to please put it out of your mind).

We were made aware of this new menace when alert reader Edna Aschenbrenner sent us an item from an Enterprise, Ore., newspaper called — get ready for a great newspaper name — The Wallowa County Chieftain. The Chieftain runs a roundup of news from the small town of Imnaha (suggested motto: “It’s ‘Ahanmi’ Spelled Backward!”). On March 14, this roundup, written by Barbara Kriley, began with the following story, which I am not making up:

“A bald eagle sabotaged the Imnaha power line for an hour and a half outage Wednesday with a placenta from the Hubbard Ranch calving operation.

The eagle dropped the afterbirth across the power lines, effectively shorting out the power.”

This is a truly alarming story. We’re talking about a BALD EAGLE, the proud symbol of this great nation as well as Budweiser beer. We don’t know about you, but we always TRUSTED eagles; we assumed that when they were soaring majestically across the skies, they were PROTECTING us — scanning the horizon, keeping an eye out for storm fronts, Russian missiles, pornography, etc.

But now we find out, thanks to the Chieftain, that they’re not protecting us at all: They’re up there dropping cow placentas. They’ve already demonstrated that they can take out the Imnaha power supply; it would be child’s play for them to hit a human.

NOBODY is safe. Can you imagine what would happen to our democratic system of government if, just before Election Day, one of the leading presidential contenders, while speaking at an outdoor rally, were to be struck on the head by a cow afterbirth traveling at 120 mph?

Nothing, that’s what would happen. First off, your presidential contenders do not ever stop speaking for any reason, including unconsciousness.

Second, they’re used to wearing ridiculous headgear to garner support from some headgear-wearing group or another. It would be only a matter of time before ALL the leading contenders were sporting cow placentas.

But a direct hit could have a disastrous effect on ordinary taxpayers. That is why we are issuing the following urgent plea to the personnel at the Hubbard Ranch and every other calving operation within the sound of our voice: PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE UNATTENDED PLACENTAS LYING AROUND.

This is especially important if you see eagles loitering nearby, trying to look bored, smoking cigarettes, acting as though they could not care less. Please dispose of your placentas in the manner prescribed by the U.S. Surgeon General namely, mail them, in secure packaging, to “The Ricki Lake Show.”

Thank you.

We wish we could tell you that the Imnaha attack was an isolated incident, but we cannot, not in light of a news item from the Detroit Free Press, written by Kate McKee and sent in by many alert readers, concerning a Michigan man who was struck in an extremely sensitive area — you guessed it; his rental car — by a five-pound sucker fish falling from the sky.

I am also not making this up. The man, Bob Ringewold, was quoted as saying that the fish was dropped by a “young eagle.” (The article doesn’t say how he knew the eagle was young; maybe it was wearing a little baseball cap backward.)

The fish dented the roof of the car, although Ringewold was not charged for the damage (this is why you car-renters should always take the Optional Sucker Fish Coverage).

And here comes the bad news: This is NOT the scariest recent incident involving an airborne fish.

We have here an Associated Press item, sent in by many alert readers, which begins:

“A Brazilian fisherman choked to death near the remote Amazon city of Belem after a fish unexpectedly jumped into his mouth.”

The item — we are still not making any of these items up — states that ”the six-inch-long fish suddenly leapt out of the river” while the fisherman “was in the middle of a long yawn.”

Of course, this could be simply a case of a fish — possibly a young fish, inexperienced or on drugs — not paying attention to where it was going and jumping into somebody’s mouth.

On the other hand, it could be something much more ominous. It could be that fish in general, after thousands of years of being hounded by fishermen and dropping on rental cars, are finally deciding to fight back in the only way they know how.

If so, there is trouble ahead. You know those Saturday-morning professional-bass fishing programs on TV? We should start monitoring those programs closely, because the fish on those programs are probably SICK AND TIRED of always playing the role of victims.

It is only a matter of time before there is a situation where a couple of televised angling professionals are out on a seemingly peaceful lake, casting their lures, and they happen to yawn, and suddenly the water erupts in fury as dozens of vengeful bass launch themselves like missiles and deliberately lodge themselves deep into every available angler orifice. And we would NOT want to miss that.

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Dave Barry is a syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald.