When I received notification yesterday of a package waiting for me at the Portland Microsoft office, I had no idea what to expect.

I’ve noticed a phenomenon among the lottery ticket buying crowd which leads the ticket holder (soon to be lottery loser) to imagine all the things he will do with his money when he wins. Not if he wins, but when. Cars, houses, vacations, the purchase of a few small islands, and, just in case there is a God, and in case God listens to everybody’s thoughts on a special radio, fanciful notions of grandiose charitable donations (like saving the lesbian-vegetarian-leper-manatee from extinction).

I have the same mental illness, except that it strikes when packages arrive.

What is it? Is it the keys to a car that I’ve won without knowing that I’ve even entered a contest? Is it a fat check from the IRS, stating that there was a little boo-boo in my taxes that necessitated the return of a huge wad of dough? Is it a $1,000,000 donation from some philanthropic benefactor who reads my blog and thinks, rightly, that I should be paid handsomely for my contributions to humanity? Or is it the severed head I’ve always wanted? A severed head seems like it could be so much fun – certainly a fabulous way to start a scandal – and I’m disappointed every time a package arrives that doesn’t contain a severed head, which, to put it into terms understandable by someone skilled in mathematics, has been 100% of the time. If you were to write a book about my life up until this point, and if you were to center it around this terminal upset, you wouldn’t be faulted for calling the book “The Great Disappointment.” And, if you were to follow it up with a movie, then you’d have to give me a lot of money, but we can talk terms when your agent talks to my agent and our lawyers get together to meet each other and do that canine butt-sniffing and licking thing that lawyers have to do whenever they assemble in the wild.

OK. Somehow this post got to be about lawyers licking each other’s butts. I don’t know who’s responsible, but I’m going to continue writing and hope that there are no further interruptions of that sort. You all need to grow up. You really, really do. It’s pathetic.

Anyway, I drove out to the Microsoft office today and picked up the package. I must admit that my first reaction was of the sadness that would make “The Great Disappointment” an instant best seller. The box was much too small and light to contain a severed head (although there was still the possibility that, being so small and being so easy on gravity, it could have been the head of an average slashdotter, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up).

It also clearly wasn’t a bunch of money, unless someone had miniaturized it with a special ray, in which case I wouldn’t even be able to spend it.

While driving home with the box, all the possibilities ran through my head, and the mental slideshow eventually came to rest at the only likely option, which was that the box contained anthrax spores and that someone (probably a small-headed slashdotter) was trying to kill me.

Then I noticed the name of the sender: Don Demsak.

You might know him through his blog as Don XML. You also might not. These sorts of things go both ways.

I’ve known Don since about mid-2003, and he’s one of the coolest, nicest, most accepting geeks that I’ve ever met.

He is now also one of the most generous.

I didn’t find anthrax in the box. I did, however, find something very similar.

Something I have always wanted:

Me with my new friends

Don is very familiar with my slight tough of the germaphobia. I don’t shake hands, I don’t share cups, and, no, I won’t try that “amazing” morsel of fish on the end of your spit-covered fork. Why don’t you just inject the plague directly into my bloodstream and get it over with? Crackpots.

But, these fuzzy little guys are some Offenses of Nature with which I can happily cuddle. It’s a line of stuffed animals based on the microbes that cause certain diseases, and I’ve been wanting some since they first came out. The first time I ever saw them, they reminded me of myself, and I made a mental note to get some one day, but I must have erased that note or lost it while filing, because I never executed on that intention.

Happily, that’s all been rectified by Don’s contribution.

From left to right, we have: The Common Cold, The Flu, Stomach Ache, and Sore Throat.

I thought it would be funny if I showed Sore Throat (streptococcus pyogenes) trying to get into my mouth – just like a real bacterium: 

I wish I hadn't given my stunt-double the day off today

I was wrong, though. It wasn’t funny. It just hurt my jaw.

Also, because I know you’re on the edge of your seat with concern, don’t worry – I put the plush toy inside a body condom before stuffing it into my mouth (now that’s a phrase that’s going to snag a few of the Wrong Kind of google searches).

So, thanks, Don :) This was a fantastic gift, and I have the little delinquents posed on my desk where they can constantly, but cutely, threaten my existence.

A wonderful surprise.