What do Blue Buffalo Dog Food and nasty computer viruses have to do with one another? Before today, I would have answered, “Nothing.” But from one of the dog food review sites flagged as “safe” by both McAfee and PC Tools, my computer picked up what is referred to as the “System Check” virus.

To its credit, McAfee did start throwing up alerts as the virus was downloading itself to my system, quarantining some files as they sought to take up residence on my hard drive. Unfortunately, the anti-virus software missed a few other files, causing me to be greeted with one fake message after another attempting to convince me that my machine was at imminent risk of catastrophic system failure.

Having become jaded by make-believe (or perhaps real?) African Kings offering me the equivalent ransom if only I would pass along my bank account information, and internet pop-ups helpfully advising that my system is performing poorly, a problem with which it, the pop-up would be more than happy to assist, I realized I was en route to being in a very bad way.

The words of one of my favorite childhood reads came to mind. I said to myself, “Don’t panic.” Then I went to work.