2005-03-12 - 5:53 p.m.
The impact of the stuff I deal with at work sneaks up on me sometimes. The other day I was taking laundry out of our tiny ancient dryer, and noticed the faint draft that comes through the dryer vent and into the dryer when it isn't running. "Hhmmm," I thought, "if we're ever required to Shelter in Place from a potential airborne threat I must remember to deal with the dryer door." This thought was quickly followed by the thoughts "I can't believe I just seriously thought that" and then "But I'm going to remind Misses A and M in any case".
We had a conversation the other day at work about how many of us have been banned from talking about work at home or to our families. Banned by those very families, that is, usually with comments like "there are things I'm happy not to know, thank you," or "I don't know how you sleep at night and I won't be able to either oif you keep telling me this stuff".
Some of the search terms I've used during the past two weeks in documents at work include:
mass fatality
corpse disposal
pustule
weaponised smallpox
decontamination shelter system
gangrenosa
Really under the circumstances it's amazing how cheerful we seem to remain.
Part of one of the projects I've been working on included looking at various models of decontamination tents, and I fear it's a sign of how badly this porject has eaten my brain that I opened a newspaper the other day, saw an article about winter camping in Algonquin Park, including a picture of the kind of shelters available for it, and could instantly recognise which company had made the tent in the photograph. I'm not convinced that this is information I want taking up space in my brain.
