Have you washed your hands today?

Because I am the Senior Secretary/Glorified Coffee-Maker/Under-appreciated Master of Office Supplies for my department, I get to choose who gets what color Post-It notes, how many reams of paper will be available on any given day, and how many toner cartridges are kept on the top of the cabinet or the side of the cabinet.

(I know. It's so easy to be jealous of me. But you, too, can be this successful one day!)

Other fun things about my job (other than, of course, the gobs and gobs and gobs of respect I'm given (she says sarcastically)) include my frequent dealings with the dreamy FedEx delivery guy and my absolute control over whether I'll be ordering Ocean Mist or Spring Bloom scented Purell hand sanitizer from OfficeMax.

Except OfficeMax emailed me last week to tell me the Ocean Mist scented hand sanitizer is out of stock and on backorder. For up to three weeks! Ok, this isn't a big deal as OfficeMax is loaded with other scents and brands of hand sanitizer. So I cancelled my backorder for Ocean Mist and re-ordered with the Spring Bloom, which I preferred anyway because it's a really pretty shade of pink. But then OfficeMax emailed me again to tell me the Spring Bloom scented hand sanitizer is out of stock and on backorder. For up to two weeks!

Wait. What? Why? Oh...(groan), that's why.

Yes, folks. The OfficeMax representative informed me that their warehouses are completely sold out of all brands/sizes/scents of hand sanitizer since the Pigs in Space have unleashed their deadly strain of nuclear Swine Flu on the masses of unsuspecting (and easily panicked!) Americans and other Earthlings.



Let's keep in mind that your normal, run-of-the-mill strain of influenza kills tens of thousands of Americans every year. But swine flu? This calls for a National Handwashing Day. Whatever it takes...whatever it takes.