It was a week ago that I was surprised to find that my allergies were acting up. Surprised for a couple of reasons. First, because I don’t really have any allergies. But secondly that it was about 36 hours after Kim arrived for the weekend sporting an allergy attack of her own. Also strange because she doesn’t suffer from allergies either.

Further inquiry yielded that “allergies” had been running rampant through her work group last week. However, many were typical seasonal allergy victims, and the early symptoms are mostly watery eyes and runny noses. All of which furthered their conviction that they were only suffering non-contagious allergies, so they remained at work honking and blowing.

Let’s review here. Kim works in a group that provides customer support. A group skilled in root cause analysis of problems. A group that was now rationalizing that a new allergen was wreaking havoc on them all individually and serially, at intervals disturbingly similar to a typical contagion vector. Can anyone say “duck test”? It may be eating like a cat, but if it quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and swims like a duck, why are they all thinking fuzzy kitten?

So while swine flu continues its rampage through the U.S. like an escaped pet shop salamander in a shopping mall, “allergies” are slowly killing the rest of us. Each morning I wake, convinced that today’s the day I’ll be free of this dripping and sneezing, only to lament over my morning paper with coffee and Kleenex. Cursing the unknown patient zero, and reviling the collective disillusionment of an otherwise intelligent group of people I’ve come to respect. To them I say but one word, “Quack!”