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“Oh wait,” I said to the server. “What about the lettuce?” I’d just ordered a cheeseburger classic, the one with, you know, lettuce and tomato. “It’s safe,” she declared. The unspoken reference, of course, was to the cyclosporiasis that had left thousands ill—across the midwest, I’d heard, so I accepted her assurance at face value.

Mistake. Sometime after midnight the first rumblings propelled me from my bed to the bathroom. Then again, and again into the next day and beyond.

Now, I’m not blaming the restaurant, one of my favorite haunts, a place just across the D.C. line in Chevy Chase, Md. that I’d been going to for years, since I have a chronic medical issue that can spark similar bouts. But I’d had a prior episode after eating out days before that I’d discounted because only a few chopped lettuce flakes garnished the dish served up at another favorite establishment, this one just inside the D.C.-Maryland line. Had I been paying closer attention, though, I would have noticed that cases of cyclosporiasis infections had arrived in Maryland in recent weeks.

All this is by way of explaining why I’ve been missing from these pages for several days. I’m on the mend now, and you’ll soon see SpyWeek showing up in your email box per usual. But let this be a warning to you, my friends around D.C. especially: Beware the green monster lurking on your plate.

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