Quarantine Blues, Episode 4
Vots goot fer da Shtate iz goot fer da peepel
Things are starting to look a whole lot better. For one thing, the govs around the country are starting to lighten up some, except for Colonel Klink up there in Michigan. That may date me some. You Millennials and Gen X’ers should google it. Doubt any Gen Z’er will read this unless I make a video game out of it. But across the states the Michigan governor isn’t alone in her autocracy. I tell ya, some of these governors would make Pontius Pilate look like Governor of the Year.
I took Bentley to a nature park
thinking that would excite him about the walking thing. No dice. He’s not a very courageous dog. Nature and other animals scare him — cows, porcupines, armadillos, bunnies. Like me, he’s an avid indoorsman. The closest we get to the outdoors is watching Mountain Men on the History Channel. He’s a suburban dog accustomed to sidewalks and fire hydrants, and where most of his colleagues are either pinned up in their own backyards or on a leash. I rescued him four years ago from a dog prison. Don’t really know his past before he was released, but I think while he was inside, he was some other dog’s bitch.
We may all become vegans this summer.
Word on the street is that there will be a meat shortage coming soon to a Walmart near you. That explains why cows and militant vegans are farting louder. As for the vegans, I thought it was because of the added kale in their diets (you can always find a kale sale as it is in abundance), but now I know it’s from excessive celebration from both — cows and vegans. PETA may be in on it, too. Not sure about chickens and turkeys. They’re too ADD. Pigs, now. Pigs are smart. They’ve started disguising themselves as undesirables like certain governors and lawyers and Nancy Pelosi and academics and editors. Just the other day I happened to be at my local university and walked in on a couple of them standing at a white board outlining how to downplay bacon. It’ll be a tough sell, though. Even vegans secretly crave bacon.
I Read a story about a 99-year-old doctor in France
who’s treating COVID-19 patients. You can fact check me on this.
I like the old fella’s what-the-heck attitude. He said,
“There’s no reason to stress [about catching the virus] at my age because I’ve got a one in five chance of not waking up in the morning, If you’re over 60 they put you with the old people. One day you’ve got cards, the next day bingo, then there’s sudoku… With all that, you become a complete idiot. I’m better off being a doctor!”
I’m no doctor, but I was a medic in the Army. Guys called me “Doc.” This is sort of the same argument I’ve been having with my daughter, except for the being a doctor part. At an advanced age (I’m also not 99), you start to realize time is a precious commodity, especially when it comes to being around the ones you love. What the hell’s the point staying isolated just to live longer. My grand kids are more important than any old coronavirus. Of course, my daughter is in the prime of her protective momma grizzly parent phase, which somehow includes me. But you’d think it’d be a win-win for her. I mean, she gets to dump her kids here for a while so she can go self-isolate with the wine of her choice. I suggested she consider a move to Michigan to run for governor. She took away my phone and made me stay in my room for the rest of the day.
One of the great things about this quarantine
is that I get to hang out with my computer and phone for more hours of the day. I’ve discovered a lot of gadgets I think I should have and many, many self-made inane videos. I don’t do Tik-Tok, but no matter. You can find stupid videos anywhere, especially on the ever-reliable Facebook and Twitter. All you gotta do is scroll down some. I started noticing these things after my friend Dangerous (not his real name, which is Bob) started forwarding some to me via Messenger. He usually sticks with cat and dog videos, but one day he sent one of this British guy discovering he could use a vegetable peeler bi-directionally on a carrot instead of the traditional uni-directional method. The guy called it
“a life-changing revelation.”
To quote Spock, “Fascinating.” I watched it more than once.
Next I started looking for gadgets. There’s a LED flashlight that’s so bright it could light up a black hole. But that’s not the best thing. It will also set things on fire. You can put the beam up against a wad of paper and it (the paper) will burst into flames. Now I know what to get my grand kids for Christmas. Technology has really advanced. When I was a kid, we had to fry ants with a magnifying glass, now you can blast a whole anthill — a flashlight of mass destruction.
From my perspective, I believe
this whole coronavirus fiasco (not the deaths but the hysteria surrounding it) is starting to wind down, that is, if government officials will let it. I strongly feel we Americans are smarter than those in charge think we are. The human record has shown us time and again that power can be a heady and narcissistic thing. However, we the people of the United States have an obligation to those who founded this great experiment not to let it fail. We must hold in check those we’ve elected to govern and make them accountable to us, not we to them.
[He steps down off his soapbox, wraps himself in the Stars and Stripes and holds a flaming LED flashlight aloft amid thunderous applause.]
That being said, not sure if there will be an Episode 5. But I will move on to another topic. My governor said tomorrow it’s okay to go out and eat, see a movie, workout, get a haircut, buy seeds, and go to church. I may just do those.
Thanks for coming along with me during this short journey. If you missed any episode you can find them here:
Episode 1, or How I Miss the Old Normal
Episode 3, What happened to My Neighbor
In the meantime, can I send you something?
Besides humorist, I like to call myself a storyteller and novelist, because that’s what I do.
If you’d like a free e-book, please wander over to my website, PhilTruman.com. Wait for the pop-up and I‘ll give you a copy of my short story collection Skins Game. It’s a baker’s dozen (that’s 13 for those of you who don’t buy donuts) I’ve written over the years.
As long as you’re there, you can read excerpts from my novels, too. On this platform, I’d welcome your responses, claps, and follows.