Damnit people, I leave you in charge and look
what happens while I’m away!

I went on vacation to a remote tropical isle to swim with sea turtles and
on my way home I picked up a newspaper for the flight. Murphy rears his
ugly head: The front page has a picture of a quarantined flight
including a couple of my co-workers. Something called SARS.
Whatever. It’s not airborne HIV or Ebola.

My first day back at work and everyone is getting off the trans-pacific
flights HREF=”http://news.myway.com/odd/article/id/315299|oddlyenough|04-03-2003::11:04
|reuters.html”>wearing
face-masks. So now I’m asking the passengers to remove their surgical
disguises so I can compare them to the passport photos. Many are actually
begrudging me the request! (dorks)

Anyway, there’s a booth filled with alcohol wipes, rubber gloves and face
masks provided for our protection. The use of such measures is verbotten
because the Folks Upstairs are concerned it might scare the passengers.
What does this mean? Do you get the feeling they’re conflicted between our
health and politics?

Many Inspectors – taking the hint from abundant the medical supplies – are
starting to bringing portable fans to aim at passengers. It’s not a biohaz
suit, but it keeps them from breathing on us. Pitty the dumb bastard who
sneezes on an Inspector these days.

I figure I’m the “Canary in
the Coal Mine” for the CDC. This wasn’t in the job description.