Thursday, January 23, 2020

Story 325: It’s Not the Flu, It’s Just Food Poisoning


            (In an office)
           Coworker 1: (To Coworker 2 at an adjoining desk) It’s gotten so bad, I had to keep my kid home from school the other day when he got all phlegmy – turns out it was just allergies from our most recent bout of Fake Summer, but still, couldn’t take the chance, you know?  An entire class of parents would’ve been after my head if my kid’d infected their spawn.
            Coworker 2: And, also, you wouldn’t want to be responsible for getting other people sick.
            Coworker 1: Oh yeah, sure.
            (Coworker 3 enters with an ashen face, stringy hair, and rumpled clothing)
            Coworker 3: (From the depths) Morning.
           Coworker 1: (Stands and points at Coworker 3) No!  No!  You’re sick!  Get out!  Go home!  Go anywhere but here!   It’s probably already too late, argh!  I hate you.  (Grabs a disinfectant bottle and sprays everywhere)
            Coworker 3: (Drops briefcase and coat onto the floor and drops self onto the chair at the desk) Relax, I’m not sick.  (Holds stomach as it grumbles)
           Coworker 2: Sure doing a good impression of someone who is.  (Scooches chair slightly away)
            Coworker 3: I mean, I’m not sick with anything contagious.  I ate some bad veggies last night and my body went on automatic purge mode, so I didn’t catch anything; it’s entirely self-inflicted.  (Unwraps five pieces of ginger candy and pops them into mouth)
           Coworker 1: (Starts putting on a hazmat suit) Ha!  Bet you’re making that up – what’re your symptoms?
            Coworker 3: Please don’t make me relive my night of torture.
            Coworker 1: Tough – we need to determine whether you’re fit to be in our presence, breathing into our air, so spill!
           Coworker 3: (Grabs a mini-garbage can that is under the desk and holds it at the ready) Bad choice of words.
            Coworker 2: (Sympathetically) So, what happened?
            Coworker 3: Well, it all started when I went to the supermarket the other day –
            Coworker 1: Skip the prologue; what happened at the main event?!
           Coworker 3: (Suppresses a burp) Well, a few hours after dinner last night, I had a noisy and active date with the bathroom for quite some time, and apparently it was so good I got a call-back around 4:00 this morning.
            Coworker 2: Aww, poor thing.  (Rubs Coworker 3’s upper arm)
         Coworker 1: (Smacks Coworker 2’s hand with a ruler; muffled by the hazmat helmet) No touching Patient Zero!  (To Coworker 3) I’m still not convinced; the timing could just be a coincidence.
           Coworker 3: I was feeling fine all day until after dinner, and looking back now the vegetables did seem a bit suspect, so food poisoning’s the only logical conclusion.
            Coworker 1: That’s fallacious reasoning – correlation does not equal causation!
            Coworker 3: Huh?
          Coworker 1: Just because you got sick after dinner does not definitively prove that dinner made you sick!  Flu has an incubation period of up to four days, so you could’ve been walking around here with it this whole week!
            Coworker 3: (Holds grumbling stomach) I highly doubt it.
            Coworker 1: You’ve got all the classic symptoms!  Are you a doctor now, hm?!
            Coworker 3: No, are you?!
            Coworker 1: I vote we call Security and have you forcibly removed to home quarantine!
           Coworker 3: (Stands, then sways a bit and leans onto the desk) You’ll do no such thing!  I got the flu shot, this is just bad food that I’m already starting to recover from violently rejecting, so you’ve got nothing!  (Holds loudly grumbling stomach, then freezes)
           Coworker 1: (Also stands) “Starting to recover,” you say?  Starting to infect the rest of us, more like!  You know how many millions of people have gotten the flu this year?!  I refuse to join their ranks, do you hear me?!
           Coworker 2: (Also stands; to Coworker 3) Maybe you should go home, though – from a purely objective standpoint, you look terrible.
            Coworker 3: Yes, I will go home –
            Coworker 1: Aha!
           Coworker 3: Not because I have the flu, but because, like a child, I need to take care of my person, right now.  And any embarrassment I should be feeling is entirely supplanted by absolute irritation at this major inconvenience, and at you!  (Points at Coworker 1) So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m taking my lunch hour now.  (Stiffly backs out the door)
            Coworker 1: (Takes off the hazmat suit and sprays disinfectant everywhere again) Well, that’s taken care of splendidly.
            Coworker 2: (Sits) What do you mean?  I don’t think that was the flu.
           Coworker 1: (Also sits) Well, with all those people sick and even dying from it each year, I’m certainly not fooling around with something that may only turn out to be a mimic.
          (Several hours later; Coworker 3 is back and sitting at a desk off to the side, surrounded by a furniture barricade)
          Supervisor: (Enters in a rush) Bad news, folks: turns out a member of our office family unknowingly came in with the flu two days ago, so we probably’re all infected with it now.  Did you get the vaccine this year?
            Coworker 1: (Frozen) Yes.
            Coworker 2: I can’t get it anymore – I got Guillain-Barré Syndrome that one time.
            Supervisor: Oh.  Well, it’s a roll of the dice either way – just an FYI you all might get sick in the next day or so.
            Coworker 2: Oh dear heavens.
          Supervisor: So, if everybody could go ahead and submit their weekly reports by the end of today, that’d be lovely!  (Gives two thumbs up) Thanks-bye.  (Leaves)
          Coworker 1: So that’s it?!  We’ve been infected this whole time and didn’t even realize it’d happened?!
            Coworker 3: (Glares at Coworker 1 over the top of a chair pile) Does this mean I get credit for time served then?
            Coworker 1: (Sinks head down onto the desk) Oh ,who cares what you even really have, now we’re all going to be beaten up by our digestive systems within the next few days, plus who-knows-what-else, and I wash my hands and don’t touch doorknobs all the time, it’s not fair!  (Softly bangs fist on the desk and cries)
            Coworker 3: (Picks up mini-garbage can again as stomach grumbles) I really hope I don’t get the flu on top of this – I have nothing left to give.

No comments:

Post a Comment