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.

WARNING: The following possible methods of treating COVID-19 have not YET been recommended by unlicensed health officials.

Eating a lot of hot, spicy food, while also shoving it up your nose, and rubbing it in your eyes.

With people wearing the same clothes day after day during shelter-in-place, dry cleaning factories are now available for picnics, complete with perchloroethylene cocktails.  Face masks should not be worn as they may inhibit the work of the chemicals.

Hoodoo spells cast by an experienced, well-intentioned practitioner.

Training a rabid dog to bite you all over your body and suck the evil spirits out of your system. This method offers multiple possibilities of eliminating the virus.

Sticking your head in the oven for 2 hours at 350 degrees, basting optional.

Locking yourself in your bathroom with a bucket of sand, a pitcher of salt water, and a sun lamp to simulate the conditions of going to the beach in California or Florida, where thousands are attempting a similar treatment. If you add a bottle of wine, you also can have a Seder.

Leeching. Unfortunately, however, PETA has filed a lawsuit asking that this method of using the Hirudo medicinalis (European medicinal leech) be blocked for the protection of the worm with bloodsucking capabilities, an action with congressional precedent.

 

 

States are relaxing their rules, in ways that may or may not make sense, but people are still warned not to:

Drink Lysol on an empty stomach.
Listen to the news on an empty stomach.
Go for a walk with a close talker.
Worry about what their hair looks like.
Drive to Georgia to get a tattoo, go to the gym, or do anything else.
Pretend that their screen is frozen while attending a Zoom meeting for work.
Wear a mask into a bank while holding a gun, except in Texas.
Use big words like “sarcasm” when they don’t know what they mean.

The tagline from the movie Escape From New York was “New York City has Become the Only Maximum Security Prison for the Entire Country. Once You Go In, You Don’t Come Out.”

All my wires have tangled themselves.

All my rubber bands have disintegrated.

I have dozens of batteries of every size and shape, none of which fit in any device I own.

I own socks. More socks. Dozens of socks I haven’t worn in years.

I have dust. More dust. Dust in places I didn’t know existed.

I smelled mulch today. Yeah!

I visit my neighbors just as often now as I did before coronavirus.

If you walk on your hands, it’s less likely that you’ll touch your face with them.

I’ve now seen 47 different coronavirus-era entertainment shows that have ended with someone singing Over the Rainbow.

Now that I’ve received a new delivery of soap, I’ve elevated my game to washing both hands, not just the one I use to rub my eyes.

As a result, I’ve discovered that there isn’t enough hand lotion in the world when you’re washing your hands 25 times a day, not counting whatever may be happening during sleepwalking.

Before coronavirus, my tea kettle whistled in C Major. Now it whistles in D# Minor.

Baking – you don’t have to turn on the oven, so no energy costs, and no calories, better than Weight Watchers

Exercising – you won’t hurt yourself by overdoing, only imagining it is good enough to work off the nonexistent calories from eating the things you pretended to bake, and your fake shower afterward will be good enough, while saving hot water

Juggling – you can keep as many objects in the air as you want, of all sizes and shapes, and still nothing gets broken

Putting on a show – you don’t need a barn, or talent

Raising children – you can have all the good times and none of the bad, but don’t do this if there really are children around, as they might not understand and you’ll hear a lot of “Mommy (or Daddy), I’m scared”

Learning a nonexistent language – again better without anyone around as speaking in tongues might scare others into thinking you’ve had a stroke

Throwing out the garbage – no need to really throw it out if you can’t smell anyway

Going for a walk – easier to keep your distance from other people when they aren’t really there

Having sex – no change here, it was always imaginary anyway

Writing a blog – if I’m imagining this, please call me, but not on my landline, it’s not working, except in my imagination

Make your scratches on the wall counting the days small enough so that you don’t run out of room, and always make them at the same time of day so that you don’t get confused.

No matter how bad it tastes, you need to eat the prison food, I mean frozen dinners, to keep up your strength.

Have alternate plans of escape in case the guards, I mean doormen, catch on to one of them.

Don’t try to escape in the rain using a fake gun carved from a bar of soap.

When getting help to escape from someone on the outside (like your Amazon delivery person), it’s okay to shake hands with them if they have dry leprosy, which isn’t contagious, but not if they have COVID-19.

I ordered a picture of Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C. to cover the tunnel I’m digging in the wall using spatulas I ordered from Amazon (slow work).

I’m using Google Maps to inform my digging so that my tunnel comes out in a safe area, and not where the guards can see me, like in the lobby.

I ordered a thousand yards of dental floss from Amazon, which can be tied together to create a rope to climb down the side of the building.

Using all the boxes I’ve received from Amazon, I’m building a boat made out of cardboard, as instructed on a cardboard boat racing website I found, to launch at the beach (if I can get past the police roadblocks there) and sail to the Marshall Islands, where no cases of coronavirus have yet been reported.

How did prisoners escape before Amazon?

I went to an online meeting of Handshakers Anonymous (HA) yesterday. It was exhilarating. I personally never have felt addicted to handshaking, which can transfer more than just the coronavirus, but I have been an enabler.

In the past, I never offered my hand, because half the time you wound up with the macho hand squeeze, the pretentious limp hand, the disgusting finger-palm tickle, or the sweaty palm that made you want to emulate Adrian Monk and immediately call for a wipe, which, of course, you can’t do very well these days, because the stores are sold out.

But, unless I quickly thought to ad lib emulated cold symptoms so as to subversively dissuade the offer, I would go along with the shake, even as my mind raced with thoughts of the negative possibilities that might ensue, not the least of which was that the person might think I liked them.

So I wasn’t at the meeting to address my own addiction, but rather to learn how to help others fight their addiction. Various methods were offered. For example, you can go straight in for a hug if you know the person well enough or aren’t concerned about ever running for public office. If you act fast enough, you can dictate the fist bump in lieu of the handshake, and, as a bonus, make the other person feel hip.

And now, with HA crawling into mainstream society, one need not feel ashamed or hesitant to decline a shake by telling someone that you’re in recovery. For that, you might even get a pat on the back, which is okay, unless it’s found to be a gateway contact.

Shelter in Place – the Rolling Stones revised version of Gimme Shelter, not to be confused with the psychological thriller sequel to the movie Shelter Island, where people try to get into the heads of their dogs

Patient Zero – a patient with no redeeming qualities, not to be confused with zero patience, which can result from being stuck at home with someone with no redeeming qualities

Community Spread – love handles

Herd Immunity – a get-out-of-the-house-free card, not to be confused with the President having heard that we all might already have immunity

Coronavirus Vaccine – a potential immunity producer, pending development, testing, and Jenny McCarthy announcing that she has proof that it causes people to grow a sixth toe on their left foot

Physical Distancing – an excuse for not visiting your in-laws forevermore

Social Distancing – a misnomer that can be used as an excuse for not responding to emails, as it has yet to be proven that the virus cannot be transmitted through the tubes that make up the Internet

Drive-thru Testing – having someone else taste the food you picked up from McDonalds before you eat it, a good idea even before coronavirus

Flatten the Curve – a proposed Chicago construction project, since 2013, to straighten Lake Shore Drive, which apparently they forgot to do during the 90 million dollar, 1982-1986 project to straighten Lake Shore Drive

Pandemic versus Epidemic – the first of many planned supervillain movies, as superhero movies have run their course, and then some

Telemedicine – a way to wait an hour for the doctor without having to leave home