Step 1: Admit that you are out of control and powerless over COVID-19.
Step 2: Come to believe that a power greater than yourself, Tony Fauci, could restore you to sanity.
Step 3: Admit that you are no longer capable of making the simplest of decisions.
Step 4: Make an inventory of your toilet paper and disinfectant.
Step 5: Admit to yourself, and to a pet, the exact nature of your hoarding.
Step 6: Be entirely ready to have the same meal every day.
Step 7: Humbly submit to Amazon Prime.
Step 8: Make a list of all persons upon whom you have breathed, and become willing to make amends to all of them.
Step 9: Made direct amends to such people, but don’t go breathing on them again.
Step 10: Continue to take inventory, but stop feeling guilty about the hoarding.
Step 11: Seek, through Zoom, to improve your contact with the outside world as you remember it, or, better yet, as you would like it to be.
Step 12: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, try to carry this message to people who are disregarding the greater power (see Step 2).
Life
Who Was That Masked Man?
I haven’t read anything about it in any of the 12 medical journals to which I now subscribe, but apparently, based upon my observations regarding usage, there must be evidence that holding a face mask in your hand or wearing on your elbow provides just as much, if not more, protection from COVID-19, for you and others, as wearing it on your face does.
On my daily trek, I saw a very pregnant, unmasked woman walking in the park. I was tempted to approach her and ask if she had a cigarette I could bum, but decided that she wouldn’t appreciate the subtlety of my request.
Walking down the sidewalk, I saw approaching me a group of five, somewhat boisterous, unmasked men (not a Lone Ranger among them) taking up the entire sidewalk and then some. Any indecision I may have had as to my next move was quickly eliminated when I saw and heard one of them loudly cough into his hand. As I quickly veered left and began crossing the street, one of them yelled out something that may have been an affront to my manhood, but I’m not sure, as I was too busy thinking about quiche recipes.
First (and hopefully last) Annual COVID-19 Awards
Best Use of the Moody Bible Institute Parking Lot: 2nd place – a three-on-three hockey game on roller blades. 1st place – a guy urinating into the side of one of the school’s buses, incorrectly assuming that he was hidden (or maybe he just didn’t care).
Most Egregious Mistake – a guy walking his dog who confused which hand held the plastic doggie poop bag and which held his similarly-colored pale blue face mask.
Best Non-News News I’ve Heard: So far there is no evidence to say that people can catch COVID-19 through their ears.
Best Medical Use of a Metronome: To measure the steadiness of my heart beat, in place of an EKG.
Best reason to wear a face mask while walking around outside, even if no one else is around – you don’t need to put suntan lotion on your nose.
Best New Idea – I’m thinking of opening a singles bar, with no occupancy restrictions, called Risk v. Reward. Upon entry, you will be asked to sign a waiver regarding STDs, COVID-19, and financial advice from the bartenders.
Second Best New Idea – Sunglasses with a microscope-type lens that enables you to see the virus, and a computer in the frame that analyzes the concentration and direction of the particles, and the wind velocity, to give you advice on how to avoid contagion, with an optional training video, narrated by football Hall-of-Fame running back Barry Sanders, who walks you through how to quickly make your moves once you have all the information.
Play Ball!: Envisioning the 2020 Baseball Season
The baseball season will start on the 2nd of July, with no fans permitted to be in attendance. Players will be paid per game, at the conclusion of each game, based on voting by their teammates and the fans viewing at home, drawing from a pot of money for each game, the amount of which will assigned by the Secretary of the Treasury.
Teams will play six days a week, with two of those days being doubleheaders (but with a triple header on the 4th of July to keep people’s minds off of possibly more important issues related to that significance of that day). There will be no limit to the size of rosters, but the total age of all a team’s players on a given day must not exceed 900 years.
The regular season will end on September 30, with each team being scheduled to play 105 games. Slaughter rules will apply. Teams also will be allowed to forfeit, but doing so will cause them to forfeit their salaries for that game. Rainouts will not be rescheduled and will be permitted only by a vote of the players, given that they will not be paid if there is no game.
All regular season games will be within one’s division. The teams will be divided into 4 divisions of 7 teams each, selected by lottery. Baltimore and Detroit will not be allowed to play, as small children, whose schools are closed, may be watching.
Home TV remote controls will be reprogrammed to allow viewers to choose between levels of crowd noise and cheering or booing at every instance of what passes for action on the field. The players will hear the resulting majority-rules sound effects over stadium loud speakers, but fans at home will hear only their choice to make them feel good about themselves.
All players and coaches will be tested for COVID-19 before the start of each game. If any player tests positive, the entire season will be cancelled. Any player caught spitting will be ejected from the game and made ineligible for the Hall of Fame.
The playoffs will start on October 3 and include the first and second place finishers in each division, thus 8 teams and three rounds of playoffs. Teams will be seeded by an algorithm that takes into account wins, ballpark differences, years since last playoff appearance, and fan voting adjusted for the populations of the involved cities.
The first round will be the best of five, and the next two rounds the best of seven, but, under no circumstances will any games be played after October 31, unless permitted by presidential executive order and approved by the U. S. Supreme Court.
Signs That I May Be Losing It
It took me five minutes to find my glasses, which it turned out I had on, and another five minutes of searching after that before I remembered where I had found them.
I lost my dinner one night because I didn’t put the frog into the water until after it had started boiling.
I wasn’t able to finish a jigsaw puzzle when I couldn’t figure out where the last piece should go.
I signed up for an online class on The Odyssey, taught in Esperanto.
I watched a Texas Guinan film festival.
I dreamt about rearranging my bathroom cabinet, again.
I couldn’t remember the name of the star of It’s Garry Shandling’s Show.
I ordered a Star Trek: Picard Borg Washable Face Mask from the Official CBS Store.
In attempting to break the world record of eight hours, 15 minutes and 15 seconds for holding a plank, I lost count at five seconds, as I started thinking about where the frog might be hiding.
Viva Las Vegas
Las Vegas, upon reopening soon, is rumored to be considering rolling out a slightly modified slogan meant to assuage any fears of bringing the coronavirus back home after a visit – “What you contract in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”
The Vegas strip will add the flagship location for a new chain called The Shelter Inn, which is conceived as a luxury hotel-hospital, and which will be opening around the country with the promotion “Checking in is better than checking out.”
Free transportation will be provided to the inns via a dedicated rail system – The Quarantine Express – for which Graham Nash purportedly has repurposed one of his big hits, as follows:
Looking at the world
Through the tear drops in your eyes
Trying to make the train
Where you’ll be sanitized
Masks and gloves and alcohol
We’re disinfecting wall to wall
And off’ring discounts from the mall for you
Sweeping cobwebs from the edges of my mind
Had to get away to help save humankind
Hope to start our lives anew
After what we’ve all been through
It’s time to board this train two by two
Don’t you know we’re riding
On the Quarantine Express
Don’t you know we’re riding
On the Quarantine Express
All on board the train.
While You Were Sleeping
I installed a PPE vending machine, just like the Las Vegas airport, in the entry to my apartment. Unlike the airport, and I can’t believe they didn’t think of this, mine will double as a slot machine, so that when you pull the lever to get your supplies (hand sanitizer, alcohol wipes, disposable mask), you will have the opportunity of winning a certificate for a free roll of toilet paper. I understand that Cracker Jack also is considering putting such certificates in their boxes.
I obtained an internal document from the Wisconsin Supreme Court that suggests that, in making their decision regarding opening the state, they analogized fighting the coronavirus to boxing against an opponent with longer arms. To offset that disadvantage, you get in close and work the body, so that your opponent can’t extend his arms. Apparently, if you’re in a bar, sitting really close to someone with the virus, the spray from their mouth or nose can’t build up enough steam in the short distance to deliver an effective dose of the virus.
Major League Baseball submitted a 67-page document to the players’ union outlining player-safety protocols for a proposed return to play, which includes a prohibition against spitting in restricted areas (like other people’s faces) and a recommendation that players wash their hands after every half-inning, which reminds me of the dictator’s rule in the movie Bananas that underwear be worn on the outside because it will make it easier to enforce the decree that “all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half hour.”
News You Can Refuse
The New York City Travel and Tourism Bureau has announced that it will be instituting, in conjunction with the city’s hotels, and the creators of escape rooms, online bed bug infestation events for those who would otherwise miss this Big Apple experience because of virus-interrupted plans. For a limited time only, tickets to cancelled Broadway shows may be exchanged for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
In an effort to protect its employees, all major airlines have announced that future flights will be auto-pilot only. Flight attendants also will be eliminated, and given vouchers for middle seats with a value equal to one year’s pay, with volunteer passengers assigned the attendants’ duties via lottery, which is the same way that use of airplane bathrooms will be awarded.
After Florida’s governor invited all professional sports leagues to bring their teams to Florida to play their 2020 seasons, that state’s legislature also quickly passed a new law increasing the state’s sales tax from 6% to 50%, which will take effect June 1 and be accompanied by the slogan “Half a Loaf is Better Than None.”
Despite Florida’s offer, the possibility of a baseball season looked bleaker as the CDC’s website recommended that gloves not be worn except when cleaning or caring for someone who is sick, ignoring how hard gloveless baseball would be on catchers.
Recent Firsts
Gambling, and losing, on online marble racing, before I learned that it was prerecorded.
Watching the first event of the inaugural Memphis Zoo Zoolympics – California Sea Lions in the free style dance competition – and wondering whether the USOC will sue them for trademark infringement.
Wondering whether the real reason that Leonardo da Vinci implemented a backward writing style was as a first step in trying to create a system by which he could cut his own hair in the mirror during the scourge of the bubonic plague in Milan.
Learning the meaning of proprioception, my apparent lack of which explains why I have trouble playing the piano without looking at my hands, which aren’t that great to look at after washing them seven thousand times in the past two months.
Watching a game of Roundnet in the park, and immediately picking up on the rules, unlike cricket, which is still totally incomprehensible to me.
Making a citizen’s arrest of someone going the wrong way in a one-way grocery store aisle.
Talking and reading to, punishing when necessary, and, before even naming it, throwing a two-month birthday party for my plant (to which I invited other plants in the building, though none came as I had insisted on masks and sap testing before entry).
Using my oven, not just for storage, but also for cooking what I had hoped would be food.
Medical Science Today
Like everyone else, I go through periods with a somewhat congested nose, which is more noticeable when you’re monitoring every potential virus symptom in your body 24/7, but this morning, suddenly, like a flash in my eye from a torn retina, my left nostril started blowing air through it like a brand new wind tunnel at NASA. We may yet colonize Mars.
In an effort to avoid constant trips to the refrigerator while sheltering-in-place, I have initiated a protocol, and concomitant scale, whereby I measure the amount of growling in my stomach to determine whether, and how much, I should eat. I have adopted the acronym GPS (growls per second), as it is no longer required for location services, since not even the most directionally-challenged of us needs a map to find the bathroom from the living room.
My dermatologist is reopening on June 1 for Botox injections. Botox works by blocking signals from the nerves to the muscles, so that the muscles can’t contract and cause wrinkles, sort of like how RCN blocks signals from the Internet to your computer, so that your computer can’t connect, thereby eliminating the possibility of an infection from a virus, other than the one you brought in with your groceries.
In an attempt to do something different, I started working my crossword puzzles with my left hand, as It has been suggested by some that use of the non-dominant hand is correlated with improved levels of creativity, intuition, ability to feel, and downright smartness. Excited by these prospects, I expanded my area of research into use of the remote control with that hand, with mixed results, as it unintentionally caused me to spend 24 hours watching Spanish-speaking television, without improving my language skills.