Humor Gazette anthrax reporter John Breneman fears anthrax has infiltrated his syntax.

Going postal over anthrax

By John Breneman

Run for your lives! Anthrax is back!

You remember anthrax: "Powdery poison slays five in
mysterious postal attacks."

That was in late 2001, when the microscopic pathogen was
all the rage. All day long it was anthrax, anthrax, anthrax.
Round-the-clock coverage on CNN, FOX News and C-SPANTHRAX.

Talk of the toxin took over our airwaves with non-stop reports
of the horrible spore, a heady mix of fear-mongering AND facts.
America’s short attention spanthrax was overwhelmed with anthrax.

The word was drilled so deep into our brains that I became
virulently anti-anthrax. It even infected my syntax.

We never found out if it was sent by the evil Talibanthrax,
way over in Afghanistanthrax, or whether it was an inside
job pulled by some mad scientist or a white powder supremacist
from the Ku Klux Klanthrax.

I hated that raggedy anthrax. It was out there lurking in
our mail sacks. We knew it could turn up anywhere — from sea
to sea, from the Rockies to the Adirondacks.

Way smaller than Tic Tacs, it could be hidden in backpacks
and knapsacks, smuggled in sedans or late-model hatchbacks.

I
was scared of the sugar on my morning stack of flapjacks,
paranoid I’d be poisoned by my Post Raisin Branthrax. What
if the terrorists planted a lethal surprise in some poor kid’s
Crackerjacks?

The media fed us countless angles on the anthrax maniacs.
Could they slip through security cracks and make weapons of
smokestacks? Could they contaminate the economy, devalue our
greenbacks? What if it ransacks our Dows and our NASDAQs?

But the anthrax probe hit a big anticlimax and vanished from TV, another media flash-in-the-panthrax.

Now, just as you thought it was safe to relax, comes news
of a possible anthrax relapse. Is it a false alarm or a threat
of real harm? I’m hyped up to see how the media reacts.

I’ve never been one of those hypochondriacs, but now I’ve
got this itchy spot on my thorax. I’m worried my homeland
security is lax; yesterday I thought I saw white powder on
my tan slacks.

So I’m irradiating my mail and turning my angst into
wisecracks.