It’s Friday the 13^th.  If you believe in that sort of thing, you might think it a fitting way to end this week.  For me it actually came complete with being attacked by a black cat.  How appropriate!

Last night around 8:00 p.m., I finally settled down after I made a trip to Sam’s Club. That was an experience. You had to forage for your own shopping cart from the parking lot and the lines were long.  The obvious things were gone: toilet paper, disinfecting wipes, hand soap.

But other items too you wouldn’t expect, like chicken. There wasn’t a piece of chicken to be found, rotisserie or otherwise.  I sent a photo of the egg cooler to Kim, totally empty, and told her not a chicken or an egg was to be found in Sam’s.

Then I couldn’t help myself and sent her a second text asking “I wonder what went first the chicken or the eggs?”

Sometimes I just crack myself up.

Wednesday night the President finally did what everyone wanted him to do. Tell it like it really was. After telling us his plans to try to reduce the severity of the situation he basically said,

“Folks, we’re all screwed”

Well not exactly but based on the hysteria it’s caused since then he might as well have said that.

 

I remember when I was a kid, my younger brother Gary was diagnosed with Scarlett Fever. I remember Gary being out of his mind with fever and hallucinating which my brother Carl and I thought was hilariously funny. My mother had to come into the bedroom and try to calm him down while he talked about monsters and such. It was awesome, maybe not so much for Gary though.

But for the rest of us it was awesome.

Because, we got quarantined and had to stay in home from school! Though I think we were supposed to stay in the house, my mother let us go out in the yard and play. I believe we were off from school the whole week.

 

Though I am not prone to panic I did make that foray into Sam’s Club.

My mission?

I didn’t have one.  I was just curious.

So I wandered around bought some canned goods (“brown beans”) and some vitamins.  I have already been in the habit of practicing a lot of the safety precautions due to my everyday desire to avoid getting a cold or the flu.  The last time I had the flu was back in 1986 but I remember it as being up there with my perforated colon as an experience I wouldn’t to go through again.

They say we don’t need masks and I believe that.  But just as a precaution I am in the process of letting my nose hairs grow long and bushy to add some extra filtering capabilities.

And I was considering allowing my mustache to grow to one of those long “David Crosby” styles that cover your mouth too but that would make it too hard to eat onion soup.  All that cheese and stuff.

We just need to use common sense. Wash our hands with soap and water for 20 seconds

Some are saying sing the happy birthday song twice but I would prefer a couple of verses of Humble Pie’s “I Don’t Need No Doctor” while I am scrubbing.

 

As an adult in 2020, staying home is no longer as much fun as it was when I was a kid. There are certainly more conveniences because now as adult “kid” I can order supplies from Amazon, food from Uber eats or Take out Taxi, groceries from Pea Pod, and according to the sign I saw recently at a local intersection you can even get your beer and wine delivered.

And with my PC, internet and VPN connection I can work at home. With my cell phone I can communicate and have my calls “follow me” if I chose to.

Isn’t progress great?

I would rather play in the yard.

 

How did we get here?

Was it a conspiracy?

Was this China’s way of reducing their population through natural transmission of disease?

Some say it was the CIA!

Was this China’s way of showing us how dependent we are on their country?

Maybe a plot to reduce our country’s healthcare costs by filtering out the older more costly age group of citizens (like me) utilizing our healthcare system as we usher in the new socialized programs?

 

Who knows?  Of course I am making that all up.  But I can see how easy it is to spread fake news.

But the situation is now very serious not only from the health threat.  Not since Y2K have I seen such a response to a potential problem.  Of course in that case nothing ever materialized.

We know COVID-19 is more than just a potential problem we just don’t know yet how much of problem.   We have sickness and some deaths, and the already devastating economic costs are just beginning to be realized.

“Folks, we are all screwed.”

 

We will no doubt get through this like we have gotten through every other crisis to affect this country. And like with terrorist attacks, 9/11 and the wars that followed lives will be lost.

The stock market will go down and eventually the stock market will go back up.

Our vigilance will be heightened though maybe a little different (“hey man, cover your mouth!”)

But it will all be okay again and maybe even better.

Maybe our dependence on foreign manufacturing goods, pharmaceuticals, and foods will be realized and those supply chains will return home to our country.

Maybe research in finding vaccines and treatment for COVID-19 will aid other treatments and vaccines including those for the common cold or other disease.

Then it will all be behind us.

And we will just hear about the mundane deaths we have grown used to like those from cancer.

Or unwanted babies maybe.

And with that the world can be happy again.

 

So on this Friday the 13^th and my weekend to follow, I think I just may have to quarantine myself to my deck and my back yard.  I can open up a can of brown beans, drink some Elderberry juice or maybe even a Corona with lime, play in the yard, relax a little, shut out the world, and just pray about it.

 

Just sit back, relax,  and watch the nose hairs grow.