A Scary Day at Work

For those of you reading this that don't already know, I work for the government. A small city actually.

Although not normally my job to open the mail, it is my job to handle the actual papers inside most of the mail that comes in. As such, today when an envelope came through the drop slot, I thought nothing of it, picked it up and took it back to my desk. I was getting ready to open it, figuring that it was probably a water bill, and tilted it sideways for the letter opener. It was on the tilt that I heard more than felt something slide sideways.

All I knew was that it sounded granular... and it shouldn't have been in that envelope, whatever it was.

I picked up the phone and dialed the fire department so that they could have someone come up in a suit, mask, and gloves and take it outside to open it knowing it was probably nothing. I wasn't even really all that concerned about it.

That is until an officer walked in, took the envelope, and started questioning me about whether there was anyone that might have a grudge against me or whether I had made anyone really mad lately.

Okay, we're the government. We ALWAYS make people mad-- but mad enough to kill me?

I sat pondering this question while the officer got in touch with the closest haz-mat team. During that time, incident command and two more squad cars showed up. By this time I'm now thinking about small pox, bubonic plague, or some asshole that just wanted to scare me.

In the end, the haz-mat team didn't seem worried enough to bother with it, so all the people in uniforms went outside to open the envelope.

It was sand. A lot of sand. Inside the envelope.

Come to find out that the envelope contained the water bill of one of the volunteer firefighters that had just returned from the beach. Crud! Was the guy actually paying his bills on the beach?! Or, was he trying to make me jealous.

In either event, I guess I handled the event correctly, and I have one for the record books.