I took my lunch hour in a coffee shop on State Street, where I could get refill price if I presented my travel mug, and they had a big circle of overstuffed chairs in the front. I slouched back in one, propped a book on my knee and passed the better part of an hour reading about infectious diseases that ravaged the planet at the turn of the century.

“What are you reading?” the guy in the next chair over asked me. I flipped the cover of the book toward him so he could reading the title, The Great Influenza. “What’s that about?” he asked.

“The Spanish flu pandemic,“ I told him.

“Oh, yeah,” he replied, gazing off into the distance as if he were recalling everything about it. Then he turned to look right at me and cackled like a fiend.

Ohhhhhhkay.

“Were you here for the Asian flu epidemic?” he asked, after he was done having his little chuckle at the deaths of millions.

“No, actually,” I said, “I was overseas at the time.”

“Too bad. If you’d been here, you’d be immune to SARS and Swine flu.” And then, like a cat who suddenly remembers he has to be in the next room right friggin now! he jumped up out of his chair and strode out the door. And that was as good a time as any to gather up my things and head back to the office, only not too quickly. I wanted to let Mister Immunity get a good head start on me.