(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.
