on the subject of germaphobes in power:

When SARS was the “pandemic” in style, my boss made Christine stay home for a week because her boyfriend’s band toured Asia shortly before it hit the media. I sneezed and he was about to demand quarantine.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a little hypochondriac hysteria every so often. Self-diagnosis is fun. If fatigued: narcolepsy. Stiff neck: meningitis. Red bump: ticks/lyme disease. I get overreaction, but enough already.

On my drive in, I was asked to pick up 11 bottles of hand sanitizer, one for each employee. I went to five stores and every place was wiped the fuck out. Desperate, I considered jumping an elderly man carrying a bag with contents resembling soap in the parking lot. An hour later, I arrived dejected at work with 4 travel-sized bottles. Devon said, “You know hand sanitizer doesn’t work on viruses, right?” effectively and immediately planting a facemask seed in my boss’ head.

I work in a large converted warehouse roughly 45 miles outside of Chicago. There are farms 15 minutes in every direction. Sometimes deer run through our parking lot from the field in back. One would think we’re not the most susceptible candidates.

However, today his daughters’ school closed due to a probable case of swine flu and Howard Hughes is now running my company, citing statistics about the Spanish flu and wiping his phone down every time he gets a call.