that's what they have a poison control center for anyway

I found this old diary entry, written one miserable night a LONG time ago. I was pretty young:

"Last night it took me 4 (four) hours to fall asleep! I was so miserable & couldn't breathe through my nose & had to breathe through my mouth. Then I kept swallowing my tongue and choking on it & the noise woke me back up.

"Repeat till 4AM, when subject decides that the warning labels on all the medicine bottles can go $@!# themselves and she's taking what she wants, when and how, and that's what they have a poison control center for anyway."

It seems timely, somehow, that I would come across this as the swine flu's starting to hit. I've turned into Howard Hughes at work, using my sleeves to open doors and essentially moving through the day as if I had no fingers.

I was just arguing with myself to relax and stop being so fanatical when truckloads of hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes were dumped off Friday and distributed to every desk.

Anti-flu protocol, apparently.

But I've got bigger germ problems than an impending flu.

I used the wipes to clean mouse turds off my desk.

Evidence of critter onslaught was found in my department a couple weeks ago. A coworker lost an entire box of granola (foil wrapped and all) and several other coworkers discovered gnawed and emptied containers.

I gloated over my clean food supply that entire week (apparently calcium pills are not attractive) and bought myself a double-chocolate chip cookie to celebrate.

The next morning, I plopped down at my desk and began working. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed dark crumbs. I picked one up absentmindedly and rolled it between my thumb and forefinger while swiveling towards the trash. "I am SUCH a slob!" I thought. "How could I drop so many cookie crumbs without realizing it??"

Then I looked at it.

And realized I was HOLDING a mouse turd.

Shoot. I almost ate it!*

So yeah, those Clorox wipes and hand sanitizer are multi-purpose!

*not really but what if???