The Subcontinental Sneeze in the Buffet

At the enormous, international sales conference last week, the hazards of buffet-style dining for 5,000 were eminently illustrated when, like many a Carnival Cruise, people by the score started turning up sick.

Was it the shellfish in the cioppino? Or the one-two punch of reanimated-from-powder guacamole and refried beans at enchilada night?

Perhaps more than any of the above it was a microcosmic recreation of the colonial-era clashing of hemispherically-endemic germs. Every continent but Africa and Antarctica were represented, and in that international bouilliabaise, with all its talking shit and swapping spit and none of the scrubbing like doctors that we do in airports and festivals, one can only imagine the stripe of exotic rhinovirus and flu bug feasting on the unprepared immune systems with free and easy access thanks to the lack of sneeze guards.