Meditations In An Emergency

We have some good news from the COVID-19 desk.

I went to two different stores on Saturday and both stores had, try to restrain yourselves because this is big news, toilet paper! No kidding!  For real! Honest!

Are you ready for some more mind-blowing news?  One of the stores had hand sanitizers! We must be living somewhere over the rainbow.

It has been a wild month.

It started with a government-ordered shelter in place which caused an economic depression. Yes, that's the word. It will be easier to explain this depression to high school students in the years to come than the Great One in 1929.  Basically, most high school and college survey classes give some details about the Great Depression but they don't make a lot of sense. So students are basically left with the impression that everybody was dancing The Charleston one day and then the next they were singing "Buddy Can You Spare A Dime."

Ours isn't that bad, I think (hope).  For one thing, we're singing "Buddy Can You Spare A Roll".

A lot of people lost their jobs and of course, the government came to the rescue.

One program was called The Paycheck Protection Program and it was supposed to help small businesses stay afloat and pay their employees.  It ran out of funds in about two weeks.

President Trump appeared daily in the White House Press  Room to answer as many questions as possible to calm the country's fears both clinically and economically.

Ha, ha, ha.  Just joking. The President appeared daily to engage in the TEE-TEE Battle he has with the press. Some days, you actually side with the President because here the press has access to the most powerful man in the world to ask him the tough questions. Example: will he use his broad pardoning powers to pardon "The Tiger King"?

But mostly it is Trump repeating the fact that the economy was really doing great until the invisible enemy came along and wrecked it. But, we're providing great big beautiful ventilators and companies are making beautiful awesome masks to wear because you're recommended to wear them but you don't have to, but they're still beautiful.

He reiterates that he's working with all of the governors who are doing a really great job except the ones that aren't like Brian Kemp, who is a great, beautiful guy and doing a great job but not really because he did something I didn't like. But he's a good guy.

This goes on and on. The press will then ask the President questions like, "Sir, most respectfully, do you want people to die suddenly?". Trump will answer that they are fake news and their ratings are in the tank.   Next question:  "Mr. President, you say you are a stable genius, but we've never seen you do any Calculus".  Ninety-nine per-cent of the time, Trump gets mad.

The other day, Trump appeared to endorse the idea that you could inject the body with disinfectants and that could cure COVID-19.  You can't say Trump doesn't think outside of the box.

Here are some other things about our crisis.

They said we should wear face masks even though it wouldn't prevent you from getting COVID-19 unless the person with COVID-19 has a mask on too.  So like everybody else who doesn't want to kill his fellow man, my wife and I got some masks.  Problem: early in the crisis, the news told us that we shouldn't wear contact lenses if we could avoid it. Because of this, I wear glasses. When you wear a mask and glasses at the same time, glasses fog up.  That's why you never see any nearsighted bank robbers or Batman wearing a pair of readers.

Also, it is hard to understand people when they are talking through a mask. It's like "Rocket Man" by Elton John.  For years I thought Elton said, "Rocket man, emy-himy-ear-own" instead of "Rocket man, burning out his fuse up here alone".

But, on the plus side, you can say some really nasty cuss words.

Another thing about this crisis is that it seems to have empowered a lot of peoples' inner Karen.

In New York City, which COVID-19 has hit hard, a lady was running around Central Park yelling at people that they were not social distancing enough.

When Governor Kemp allowed a slow rollout of non-essential business openings, the Karens were in full-throated outrage that Governor Kemp was going to get people killed.

I really wasn't that surprised by the response. My dad was a "yellow dog Democrat" who thought the GOP platform was 1) Kill people and 2) Take all their money. This was basically the logic the Karens used.

It does sound kind of funny that one of the first businesses to open were bowling alleys and tattoo parlors. Unless you owned a bowling alley or a tattoo parlor. Then maybe it just means you can start making money to support yourself and your family.

The Karens never mention the PITA ("Pain In The...") regulations these small business owners have to go through just to open and serve their clientele.

I'm trying to stay positive. Thankfully, the worst-case scenarios did not occur. We still lost John Prine and that sucks enough, but it appears we won't lose the millions that were forecasted.

Things will get better. Honest. Has Uncle Alan ever lied to you before?