I'm pretty much done with, you know, leaving the house.

        I do plan on changing rooms occasionally, at night, with the lights out. I know the floor plan pretty well. As soon as the night-vision goggles arrive in the mail, I'll be totally safe. Unless the package has white powder inside.

        I'm sealed up. I'm hosed down. I am a Ziploc-ed man. Terrorists won't catch me napping. They won't catch me doing anything. Because, basically, I won't be doing anything.

        I'm finished eating Hostess doughnuts. It's all over between me and Fab. My god, what are those blue crystals? You better line that soccer field yourself, coach. All those people still snorting cocaine? See you much later. The only white powder I want to see is in Aspen in January.

        I'm arranging my own Haz-mat team. Three or four guys dressed in moon suits, clunking around my kitchen, checking the Ajax 24-7. You never know.

        They shut down a jogging path in Fort Thomas last week, because it circled a couple of reservoirs. Never mind that experts have said the amount of poison needed to contaminate a municipal water supply would require a fleet of trucks. “Huge quantities of toxins would have to be dumped into a reservoir to make many people sick,” according to Time magazine, “let alone kill them.”

        We can't be too cautious, though. We all better stay inside.

        In Louisville, a mother gave her daughter a cell phone equipped with a two-way radio “in case anything happens.” The mother's friend will no longer drink tap water. As a New York Times writer put it, “There's no way to escape the fact that something profoundly sinister is going on.”

        There is at my house. I'm staying in for awhile. Like maybe the next 40 years.

        Rationally, what we need to do is save our resolve for what appears to be an extended siege, not call 911 every time someone has an overload of dandruff on his suit coat. There is a difference between vigilance and paranoia. There is a thick line between being cautious and being terrified lunatics. It'd be good if we found it. I've seen so many anthrax stories on NBC, I'm thinking of vaccinating my television.

        Between September 1940 and May 1941, German bombs killed 40,000 British citizens. Anthrax has killed one American.

        We media people should be reporting responsibly the concerns of the day. Instead, we're pumping the apocalypse. All anthrax, all the time.

        There is no point in doing much of anything, ever again.

        Eating out? Botulism.

        Shopping malls, movie theaters? Truck bombers.

        Sporting events? Suitcase bombers.

        The office? Nerve gas in the air ducts.

        Mail? Oh, no, my friend. You want to sell me, bill me, inform me, market to me, Christmas-card me or send me a summons, you better e-mail me. I'm done opening mail.

        Because, really, you never know when the next nut will buzz your house in a crop duster.

        It's enough to make you curl up in a ball, which I'd be doing right now, except curling is hard in this poison-proof suit I'm wearing. And typing while wearing boxing gloves, man, what a challenge. You should see me trying to sleep with that gas mask on.

        As of now, I'm done reading the papers and watching TV, too.

        They would only scare me.

       Contact Paul Daugherty by phone: 768-8454; fax: 768-8330; e-mail: pdaugherty@enquirer.com.
       

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