Dear Diary,

Be careful of what you say the next time you call in sick. It could get you into trouble. Just ask one of my sister’s supervisor. He asked B (no way am I going to use this person’s real name) to let everyone know that he was sick and would be out of the office. Unfortunately B made a slight TYPO in the email and instead of saying that the boss had a “mean virus”, B wrote that the boss had a “MAN VIRUS”. BIG MISTAKE!

All day long people kept asking B what a “Man Virus” was. Even the boss, who was home and completely unaware of what was going on, wasn’t spared. His email was being filled with people asking what a “Man Virus” was and how do you catch it. Some of the men wanted to know if there was something that he wasn’t telling them and if they should stay away from him.

B sent out another email explaining that he had left the “E” out of “MEAN”, but it didn’t help. No one was going to let a situation as good as this one, pass.

Anyway when the boss returned to work the following day, he attended a meeting BEFORE he read his email. He couldn’t understand why people kept asking him if he felt “more like a man today”. And everyone in the office knew when he DID finally read that particular email by the loud, “B, what have you done?”

“I accidentally left the ‘E’ out of ‘MEAN’”, B piteously replied.

“Well next time, just say that I’m sick. Don’t give any details.”

Naturally, this “joke” keeps making the rounds in various forms. When some men who work with my other sister complained that they were identified in a program as “women”, she told them to "hang out" with her sister’s boss. Maybe they could catch that “MAN VIRUS”.

Of course, NOW whenever the boss is sick, everyone comments that he must be suffering from a reoccurrence of the “man virus”. Neither he nor B will ever live that one down. So PLEASE be careful about you tell people when you are sick, or you might not want to come back to work.