Things were so hectic at the office today that leaving to eat lunch was simply not feasible. The new regime in Saudi Arabia, combined with the confrontation over debt resolution between Greece and the rest of the European Union had packed my schedule from six in the morning until eight at night. Amid the barrage of consternated diplomats and Washington apparatchiks, I had managed to carve out time for three ten minute espresso breaks and a half hour for lunch, starting promptly at noon. But fate had other plans for me. No sooner had I begun to tuck into the exquisite sushi Gretchen had ordered from SEI over in Penn Quarter, than she buzzed me on the intercom from the reception area with an urgent message.
“Mr. Collins,” she flatly declared, “your sister Rose is on Line Two.”
Tom: Hello, Rose?
Rose: Hi, Tom. Got a minute?
Tom: Well, since it’s precisely three minutes past twelve, I have, in fact, exactly twenty-seven of them before my next consultation, a few of which I would like to use in order to eat lunch.
Rose: I’m sorry, Tom, I really am, but this is urgent.
Tom: Okay, if you say so. What is it?
Rose: About an hour ago, I found out something very disturbing about my next door neighbors.
Tom: Which ones?
Rose: The ones on the right side.
Tom: As you face your house?
Rose: No, that would be the ones on the left side. I’m talking about the neighbors on the right side as you look out the front door.
Tom: All right, I understand. What about them?
Rose: The nine-year-old, their little girl; she has the measles.
Tom: Jesus Christ on a crutch! Where the hell are they from?
Rose: Originally?
Tom: Yeah.
Rose: Connecticut.
Tom: Oh, great – let me guess. They’re hopelessly flaky, Birkenstock-wearing, tree-hugging, granola-snarfing, solid-waste-recycling, garbage-composting, Whole-Foods shopping, Prius-driving, Earth-Day celebrating, liberal Democrats, aren’t they?
Rose: With solar panels on their roof.
Tom: Of course – how could I have overlooked the solar panels? And I suppose they believe that thimerosal, the preservative used in measles vaccines, causes autism, don’t they?
Rose: That would explain why they never got their children vaccinated, I guess.
Tom: So it would. It would also explain what monumentally ignorant morons they are, because the pharmaceutical companies caved in and took thimerosal out of vaccines over ten years ago. Well, now your benighted liberal neighbors are getting their just desserts, aren’t they? That so-called scientific study from the 1990’s which purported to demonstrate a link between childhood vaccinations and autism has been completely debunked for years, but meanwhile, they and their pathetic ilk have been running around with massive cephalo-anal impactions, refusing to believe the mountains of authentic science that proves vaccinations are safe and effective. So now, their kids have to suffer like it’s 1955, when there wasn’t any such thing as a measles vaccine. All I’ve got to say is, they’re damn lucky it’s not a polio epidemic instead, because…
Rose: Tom, there’s another… aspect to this situation I think you should know about.
Tom: What’s that?
Rose: When I mentioned what’s happened next door to Arthur, he went white as a sheet.
Tom: Really? How come?
Rose: He couldn’t say anything, Tom, not for about five minutes. He just went downstairs to the living room and sat on the couch, staring at the wall. Finally, I got it out of him.
Tom: And what is it?
Rose: Shannon never let him get any of their kids vaccinated, either.
Tom: What? Shannon’s to the right of Barry Goldwater’s ghost!
Rose: I must admit, it surprised me, too, until I found out that Rand Paul is against vaccinations.
Tom: Oh, yes, now that you mention it, the extreme left and extreme right ends of the political spectrum do intersect in some mighty strange and unexpected places.
Rose: Arthur told me that Shannon is convinced vaccination is a Socialist conspiracy, just like water fluoridation. He said, she said they’re both attempts by the government to dictate the destiny of people’s lives without the due consent of the governed.
Tom: Sounds like Shannon, that’s for sure.
Rose: So now I’m walking around on eggshells, Tom. How contagious is the measles, anyhow?
Tom: It’s ridiculously contagious.
Rose: Ridiculously? Contagious? How ridiculously contagious?
Tom: The virus can travel over a radius of thirty feet after a single sneeze.
Rose: Thirty feet?
Tom: It can persist in the air for up to two hours.
Rose: Two hours?
Tom: And if you breath that air and you’re exposed to the virus and don’t have any immunity, there’s a ninety-percent chance you will contract the disease.
Rose: Ninety-percent? Oh, my God.
Tom: Actually, the infected person doesn’t even have to sneeze or cough. Just talking generates enough virus aerosol to do the trick.
Rose: Tom, I’m feeling faint just thinking about this – every single one of Arthur and Shannon’s children here in this house with mine, not a single one of them vaccinated for measles, and right next door there’s a kid with this ridiculously contagious disease.
Tom: But your kids are vaccinated, right?
Rose: Of course they are! What kind of mother do you think I am?
Tom: So… okay, suppose the unvaccinated kid next door gives one of Arthur and Shannon’s kids the measles. Then it’s highly likely that in about a week, all of Arthur and Shannon’s kids will have the measles. That means they’ll have to stay home from day care and various school grades of K through twelve for about three weeks, and Arthur will have to burn all his annual leave staying home to take care of them, because there isn’t a babysitter in all of Fairfax County who will go anywhere near a house full of kids with the measles.
Rose: Probably. But you’ve forgotten something.
Tom: What?
Rose: Just like me and most other suburban Washington DC parents, Arthur uses his annual leave to come in late or take off from work early and fight traffic on the Beltway so he can get home in time to take his children – and sometimes mine – to soccer games, to football practice, to lacrosse practice, to basketball practice, to riding lessons, to tennis lessons, to ballet lessons, to piano lessons, to tap dance lessons, to swimming meets, to Scouts, to Christmas Pageant rehearsals, Easter Play rehearsals, to First Communion rehearsals, to school play rehearsals, to school concert performances, to the dentist, to the orthodontist, to the allergist, to the optometrist, to the hospital emergency room with broken legs, arms, wrists, knees and elbows gotten at soccer games, football practice, lacrosse practice, and yes, riding lessons, tennis lessons, ballet lessons, tap dance lessons and swimming meets; and to do any number of other things for his children that you could readily imagine, Tom, if you had any children of your own.
Tom: Now let’s not get started on that, shall we? Look at all the grief I’m missing during this stupid measles epidemic, for instance.
Rose: Sorry. My point is, Tom, that consequently, Arthur’s current annual leave balance is only four days, meaning if his kids get measles, he loses two solid weeks of income taking leave without pay.
Tom: Leaving you and him and all those kids of yours in the poor house, I suppose?
Rose: Well, without Hank and Shannon’s incomes, Arthur and I have been sailing pretty close to the wind, Tom, you know that. I’ve done the math, and if Arthur had to stay home for three weeks watching over a house full of kids with the measles, your, ah… extended family out here in Fairfax would be pretty much bankrupt. We could still make the mortgage payments and buy the cheapest food Costco has to offer in bulk, but it would be at least three months before we could afford to buy the children new clothes. And forget about all those lessons, the orthodontist, the Scouts, the…
Tom: All right, all right! You’re breaking my heart! How about this – if Arthur’s kids get the measles and he has to stay home for three weeks looking after them during their quarantine, then I write you a nice fat check for about ten grand. Would that keep me in good standing as your loving little brother, your kids’ doting uncle and whatever sort of convoluted filial relation I am to your husband’s brother’s children?
Rose: Oh, Tom, that would be so kind and charitable of you. I’m just so worried about this measles thing and what it might do, and I can’t believe Shannon could be so irresponsible, or that Arthur would forget to tell me about her not getting her children vaccinated and…
Tom: Please stop crying, okay? And frankly, I don’t see why either of us would have any trouble believing that Shannon could be so irresponsible. You and I both know it’s perfectly in character for her to pull a bone-headed stunt like that.
Rose: But what I still don’t get is how she could bring herself to imitate the child-rearing practices of effete West Coast liberals, even if Rand Paul does agree with them.
Tom: I guess that proves it – anti-vaccination hysteria makes strange bedfellows.
Rose: Evidently. So, Tom, I know you’re not a lawyer, but I also know you can think like one if you want to. Can I ask you a sort of quasi-legal kind of question?
Tom: You’re my big sister, Rose, you can ask any kind of question you want.
Rose: If the kids next door make Arthur’s kids sick with the measles, can he sue their parents?
Tom: Only for damages consequent to cases of the measles in Arthur’s kids who are less than six months old, because children that young can’t be vaccinated for it – their immune systems aren’t sufficiently mature to handle the biochemistry involved.
Rose: Six months? Well, since Shannon’s been traipsing around survivalist bunkers in West Virginia with my husband for over two years at this point, that’s certainly not an issue.
Tom: And actually, to tell the truth, if any of his brood catch the measles, Arthur ought to be worried about the other families in the neighborhood suing the folks next door – and him – for having all those unvaccinated kids running around, spreading such a highly contagious, dangerous disease that in fact kills thousands every year.
Rose: Kills them?
Tom: Sure – in places like Pakistan and the Philippines. Measles is serious stuff, Rose, I kid you not, no pun intended.
Rose: Oh my God, Tom, I’m so worried. What can I do?
Tom: Um… not to belabor the obvious, but, why don’t you and Arthur get all his kids vaccinated for measles as soon as possible – like tomorrow, for instance?
Rose: We could do that?
Tom: Who’s stopping you?
Rose: Oh, oh, oh my God, Tom, I guess I’d better go do that – right now.
Tom: Good idea. Gotta go now, there’s a paying client coming in. ‘Bye!