I woke up in the middle of the night last night, seized with the fear that the 75 rolls of duct tape in my Department of Homeland Security-approved Biological Attack Preparedness Kit might have dried out and lost their stickiness. After all, it's been over four years already, and who knows how long that stuff stays sticky. Bad enough that the duct tape packaging instructs you to apply the tape to a clean surface, and I haven't cleaned my walls, door jambs or window frames in four years. Did I really need to also discover, in the panic of a biological attack, that my tape had gone as dry as a Democratic Congressman's powder?
So I went nosing around the internet, trying to find Homeland Security's specifications for duct tape viability, and stumbled across the surprising news that this very Sunday, Homeland Security would be carrying out a test of a vital Biological Attack Emergency Preparedness Exercise right here in my own city.
Not only that, but there was going to be Sunday mail delivery! Who says Homeland Security can't get things done.
Join me below the fold...
Here is the citizen alert posted on the Philadelphia City Government website:
On Sunday, June 24, 2007, local, state and national officials are conducting an exercise to test the delivery of emergency medicine.
Postal carriers will deliver small, empty, cardboard boxes that represent medication to approximately 52,000 households in the Germantown (19144), Fairmount (19130), and Boulevard (19149) areas of Philadelphia. A Philadelphia Police Department officer will be with each postal carrier as part of the test.
Damn, I'm glad I stumbled across this, because I can tell you, if I saw a mailman come to the door on a Sunday, I'd think I'd been slipped a hallucinogen. No wonder they have to have a police officer accompany every single mail deliverer...it's going to be bedlam! People won't know what day it is, they'll think they're getting a telegram sending them to Iraq, they'll be thinking they're getting their People Weekly a day early.
It might be worse if I was out when the delivery was made, and came home to find an Official Empty Cardboard Box That Represents Medication on my doorstep. I think that would definitely creep me out. Damn, I hope they've thought to clearly label those boxes, so people don't actually try and swallow them. Just printing the official text off the website would be sufficient:
For this test, this empty box is meant to represent emergency medications that would prevent people from becoming sick from a bioterrorist attack.
So, let me get this straight. This exercise is meant to demonstrate that the Postal Service has the capacity to deliver small packages to homes in three zip codes within the city. Every single postal delivery will have his or her own police escort, to ensure that this tricky and complex task is properly carried out. And the delivery will consist of a surrealist joke, an empty box representing medication.
Well, here's what I have to say to the Department of Homeland Security:
This empty exercise is meant to represent an actual though nonexistent policy that would prevent people from becoming sick from a bioterrorist attack.