Spies Like Me

Out of absolute pure boredom one day, I decided to send out feelers to see if there were any other spies like me. I couldn't possibly be the only Top Secret Dodo*.

My intelligence sources tell me that a new batch of secret agents were recently dispatched to their posts out in Cube Land, where they have sworn to loose life and limb for the Secret Agent cause. Time for a secret agent rendezvous.

We meet in disguise at a local bar. I pretend I am a medical student and they pretend they are veterinary students, sent out to fight and defeat the Pox virus. Already, they sound more secret agent-ly then me and my assignment to end world asthma and curb air pollution, two seemingly pointless causes. Pox virus, at least, has a face.

We do the secret agent handshake, ruffle our hair, sit down over stale ale, tap beer and crown royal with seven-up, my sissy drink of choice, and begin to exchange tales. Turns out that they shuffle paper intensely as well and do a lot of internet research.

Male Secret Agent had recently been called out to the field in Colorado, where he was sent to investigate an outbreak.

"What happened there?" I asked, just feeling for clues to gauge whether or not I should send out an SOS and evacuate family there.
"Crypto outbreak," he replied.

He meant Cryptosporidia, a protozoan, as opposed to Cryptococcus, a fungus. Both are equally nasty and potentially fatal if you have no natural body defense. The protozoan causes diarrhea. Male Secret Agent was sent as a warm body, someone who would do the leg work of cold calling residents of the Colorado community to see if they would participate in government research. If anyone has had the pleasure of being solicited by an insurance plan or to purchase a new, state-of-the-art love seat, you would know that such calls are a pain in the rear and would do anything or say anything to get the person to never call again. Fortunately, government research is exempt from those "no call lists", but not quite exempt from the say-anything-and-do-anything-to-get-the-person-never-to-call-again bit. So, naturally, for every 1 caller that Male Secret Agent persuades to participate, he has to make something like 400 phone calls.

Crypto can be acquired several ways. Most normal people get it from drinking contaminated water or not washing hands. Clusters of cases can happen at day care centers as well as nursing homes. It has been a rising trend to acquire this parasite sexually.

Since this is a zoonotic (thing animals give to humans) parasite that invade farm animals like cattle, goats and turkeys, these outbreaks are also of concern to the veterinarians. I am told that most human disease are ones that humans give to humans, although in the back country of places like West Virginia, it's anyone's guess how they acquire crypto.

So, Male Secret Agent's task was to survey people. He tells of his 401st phone call where he finally persuades grandma to participate in research. After making sure that she hasn't had diarrhea, he had to ask a series of questions that begin something like this:

"Are you sexually active?" Yes, or sometimes he gets I wish or Are you asking me out, honey?
The next question was: "Do you practice rimming or anal sex?"

And then he has to go ahead and explain to grandma what 'rimming' is with a straight face. I just about died laughing.

He also had to solicit participants in the age group of 5-11 years. This is what he typically says after he introduces himself:

"Are there children in the household between the ages of 5-11 years?" Sometimes he gets real cordial answers. Other times, he would have his ears cussed out in several different ways and in several different languages, all calling him variations of "pervert" and "child molester".

He still has many more calls to make now that he is back at headquarters. So far, they've recruited like 180 people. My math is not too good but I can imagine that he has had to call a shit load of people, talk to several hundred grandmas about rimming and anal sex, to get those 180. I tell Male Secret Agent that I do not envy him. He was about to recruit me to join him in the land of crypto. I am extremely happy in asthma land, I say.

I offered to lend him those Ruby Reds once they get fixed and promised to meet up again for the second secret agent conference.


* I forgot to give credit where credit is due and thank StarSahota for coining this one.