The Church is resurrected!

This is mostly for my own sanity as I feel the need to rant, rave, and express my profane inner being as the world goes completely and utterly fucking mad around me. Stocks are crashing, people are dying (see how I have my priorities straight there?), and the Tiger King is trending. I have no problem imagining a scenario that ends up with the end of the Great American experience, and I am strangely okay with that if it happens. The Absolutely Convinced have broken from their cages and dominate the world right now. The sheer number of instant experts on epidemics, economic, and supply chain management is hard for a mere mortal mind to imagine.

And where the hell has all the toilet paper gone?

The world is going to look a lot different after this current panic. I will be glad to see the end of causal hugging as I have never really been much of a fan. Until there is an actual effective vaccine, I probably will not be heading out to any concerts or baseball games. I can watch all that in my living room with having to worry about some stranger’s sneeze sending me to the ICU or the morgue. Bonus round there is I can have a hot dog and a beer for a total cost of about $2 buck with all the condiments and not a $20 bill. Better yet, I can have a steak and a high-end bourbon for about what the dog and the beer would have cost at the stadium.

I had one friend suggest that companies will rethink the need for office space when this is over. I really don’t think that will be the case at all. I have talked to several business owners that are complaining about the drop off in productivity in the past few weeks as workforces went home. People need supervision for the most part. That inner urge to fuck off runs strong in most of us, and it’s a lot harder to fuck off when the boss can see you through his office door.

The cruise ship industry is probably fucked. You will never get me on one of those floating death boxes again. I am not a fan of cruises anyway, but after this. I am sure there will be a lot of other folks who feel the same. Once the world is open again if I feel the need to watch severely sunburned Midwesterners annihilate a buffet while consuming lite beer from breakfast until bedtime because they paid for a drink package I can go down into the Keys without risking exposure to whatever filthy little virus has leaked out Africa or Asia and found its way across the world on a ship from which I cannot escape.

None of us will ever again be caught without at least 50 rolls of toilet paper.

There is a hope that we will figure out what is really important in life and treat each other better. I was very hopeful that this would happen after such a dangerous time. Then the weed wore off.

The insane part of all this is that a whole bunch of folks think this is all overrated and a whole bunch of other folks that think they will all die very soon from the virus. The rest of just wish the other two groups would stay home and stay off the damn internet. All this quarantining and recognizing that we may be wiping our asses with coffee filters before long is stressful enough. It is hard to enjoy surfing the web to keep your mind off the fact that the allegedly greatest nation on the face of the earth did not prepare itself for the possibility of something scientists have been telling us for years was absolutely going to happen.

Don’t take that as a political position, by the way. I hate both political parties equally. I changed to Independent several years ago and have no plans to join another one unless I make good my threats to start the “Leave Me the Fuck Alone” party. The Libertarians come closest, but most Libertarian gathering I have attended fall somewhere between Comicon and a Drug rehab reunion of backsliders with a few folks who would feel right at home drilling with the militias up in Idaho training to fight off the black helicopters.

When the history of the coronavirus is written, there will be blame for all the politicians of all ranks and stripes. The lack of preparation for a Pandemic-or a chemical attack that might have been like a pandemic- is stunning. Plans were written. They were even adopted at some levels of government. Elected officials said, “Yup. That’s good, Lets do that.” Then did nothing.

As I watched the debate over relief legislation work its way through Congress, I would like to say that politicians set aside their partisan dogma and passed the bill. I would like to say that, but I don’t have that much weed. Both parties postured while in the background they were trying to direct some of the trillions of dollars of relief to their favorite

Religion has shined during all of this as well. Several Mega Churches are having services with thousands of people watching, and the Pastors promise to pray away the virus if any of their flock gets the virus and falls ill.

Folks, Jesus is going to be very busy, what with all the wars and other human suffering going on in the world. There is a good chance he won’t be able to make time for someone who got sick because that is site don gathering a build with thousands of the potentially infected people to give their money to a preacher who will have a hard time deciding which of his house she should have his limo driver drop him off at when services are done.

Did you hear about all the mega-rich Super Churches opening their doors to help or sending checks for all the medical supplies that will be needed? Neither did I.

Folks, this is a wartime situation. The enemy is a microscopic buy, and we are all the front-line soldiers. We don’t even have to charge a hill or fall on a grenade to save our buddies. There is no boot camp.

All we have to do is stay at home. Read books, binge watch the Tiger King, stay drunk, do whatever the hell you want. But do it inside your house or in your back yard. Maybe some of you will get it right, get to know your kids, call your parents to check on them often, fallback in love with your spouse. I hope it works that way, but even if it doesn’t stay in the fucking house.

There is a lot of posts on social media about how busy obstetricians will be in the aftermath of all this. Do you know who else is going to be really busy? Divorce lawyers and urologist that specialize in vasectomies.

Let me clear all this up for you. The virus is real. It is killing people. Given the gross level of incompetence displayed over the years and in the early stages of the current pandemic, there is a good chance the government can’t save you.

What can save you- and everyone else that you give a shit about?

Staying in the damn house.

I also saw a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that found that only buying the amount of toilet paper you need and leaving some for the rest of us. Even better, buy one extra roll for grouchy old bitch across the street whose husband died a few years ago and whose kids cannot find the time to visit. You don’t even have to talk to her. Put on the porch, ring the bell, and run home.

We have seen some amazing acts of kindness during this mess. People are shopping for elderly relatives and neighbors. Taping Teddy Bears to the front door or in the window so neighborhood kids can go on a bear hunt. Filming concert and entertainment videos to keep folks from going crazy in their homes. Skyped pub crawls. Checking on elderly neighbors. Neighborhood sing a longs though open windows.

Be like those people.

If you can’t, at least don’t be a dick throwing coronavirus parties and buying dozens of packs of toilet paper,