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Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
(The Governor of Texas has ordered that most businesses and all table-service restaurants, including the roadside old-guy cafes, be shut down indefinitely as of midnight, Friday, the 20th of March 2020.)
Keep Calm and Carry Out Lunch in a Paper Sack
Several days ago a friend and I enjoyed our weekly lunch. In a restaurant. Surrounded by people. We shook hands both hail and farewell. Wild ‘n’ crazy, eh? We didn’t realize then that this would be our last shared lunch for – how long?
With the schools closed, who else will village idiots (yes, I said “village idiots,” for that is what they are) telephone to make bomb threats?
Did any government agency make plans for comforting the losers whose reason for living is calling in bomb threats? And why not? And do the twits who make bomb threats receive a thousand dollars each for losing their purpose in life for a month or so?
Grocery shopping has become like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates – you never know what you’re going to get. Spam, which at other times rates only a sneer of disapproval, cannot now be found. A five-pound net bag of potatoes is another rarity, but the other day small bags of new potatoes were available, as well as single-wrapped potatoes for baking. Unlike the Night-of-Zombie-Terror-in-Abandoned-City pictures on the InterGossip the stores I’ve visited are stocked well enough, but you have to be flexible and creative.
If a serious food shortage develops, I propose that we eat the motivational speakers first.
A meme on Gyphy has Oprah Winfrey exclaiming happily, “And YOU get a roll of toilet paper and YOU get a roll of toilet paper and YOU get a roll of toilet paper…!”
A common analogy is that the current crisis is like the Second World War. I am too young to have been in that war, but I’m pretty sure that a spot of bother in finding a roll of toilet paper or a loaf of bread is nothing like the death marches, bombing raids, starving children, or prison camps.
A depressing fact is that everyone seems to be blaming everyone: why didn’t the president have stocks of testing kits in his garage, why did the mayor of Frontage Road, Texas shut down his town, why did the mayor of Trackside, Idaho not shut down his town, why didn’t your cousin the LVN know about the coronavirus ten years ago, why didn’t the governor tell me to stock up on toilet paper last month, why are the borders closed, why aren’t the borders closed, why are there people on the roads, why aren’t there people on the roads, why are the restaurants closed, why aren’t the restaurants closed, why aren’t there enough masks that don’t work anyway except that maybe they do work or maybe they don’t, why are churches closed, why aren’t churches closed, and on and on. Some of the comments on the InterGossip would embarrass Darwin, and Nonna and MawMaw would have something to say about such cruel words.
And, no, billionaires aren’t hoarding respirators.
This virus will end, probably just in time for the hurricanes, but we can get back to our proper jobs and the occasional visit to the coffee shop for the coffee we always say is too expensive but we will drink it anyway and enjoy being with friends again. In the meantime, let us Keep Calm and Carry Out the go-cups.
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