I think it was Wednesday when I opened “Wisconsin’s Morning News” with a short ramble about how the feeling had hit me the night before, that dull ache that said this coronavirus thing was starting to gain traction, that this was an event that was something more than previously believed, perhaps worthy of more attention that it had already received.
Hoo boy.
That dull ache became a full-blown migraine about 15 hours later. In the course of about 20 minutes that same night, the world would start shutting down. An NBA player’s diagnosis would shutter the league down and trigger a domino-effect that halted sports at almost all levels to a halt. Mr. and Mrs. Tom Hanks admitted they had the bug, putting a face on the malady for everyone else. An Oval Office talk that night did little to calm the markets–in fact, observers said overseas ones plummeted with the utterance of each new Presidential sentence. By the time we went to bed that night, there was a palpable vibe that we’d be waking up to a whole new world the next morning.
One strangely devoid of…toilet paper.
The runs are on (pun intended) for bum wipe, hand sanitizer and various dry goods at local grocery stores, to the point where some outlets are limiting how much we can buy. Yes, we live in a time where the kindly Woodman’s guy we see in those TV ads no longer has time to say “aye, caramba!” and instead has to remind us, “Limit two per customer, please.”
Panic buying is nothing new. It’s sadly part of our national DNA, the ugly part of the frontal lobe that has some of us thinking “me” instead of “we” when times grow dark. Think back to September 11th, 2001. Of all the images seared into my mind from that most awful of days is the one that I saw that night as I drove home after putting in some 18 hours on the air, that being the line of cars on Grange Avenue in Greendale, headed east from 76th Street for blocks. They weren’t queuing up at the neighborhood blood bank or waiting to get into the nearest house of worship. They were at Speedway, topping off their tanks, convinced that the day’s events were going to somehow put a crimp in tomorrow’s gasoline supply. Some commemorated the horrific deaths of thousands of fellow Americans by thinking first and foremost about their fuel tanks. Not all, of course, but enough to make you think, what in the actual hell.
It’s the “me first” thinking that brings us to where we are today: authorities having to protect us from ourselves, from the co-workers who still punch in when they KNOW they don’t feel good, from the goofball who gets on an airplane full of fellow passengers when he already KNEW he had been diagnosed. They have to shelter us from the social media B-S including bogus cures and true “fake news” about the bug’s spread. It’s there that we can find the video of the guy, supposedly taking the ladle from a pot of grocery store soup, pouring a slug of same into his mouth and putting said ladle BACK INTO THE KETTLE for others to use. It’s because of people like that and others who refuse to take this kinda thing seriously.
That would include one Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz who famously glommed every microphone in sight at a recent post-game news conference, famously poo-pooing the threat posed by the disease. While he became the poster child for coronavirus (and the true-bitch nature of karma) days later when he got diagnosed, he also will probably get tainted credit for triggering the sports shutdown that ensued, along with the other life-altering changes we’re now living through, driving home the fact that we needed to first and foremost stop showing up in big numbers to watch the things we love. Lessons learned from another malady more than a century ago (fun fact: Spanish flu first got diagnosed 102 years ago this past week) show that the first thing we need to do in such situations is…nothing. Nothing, that is, that brings us together in huge numbers where viruses can spread in a moment, especially in a world that finds us much, much more connected that we were as World War I was grinding to a merciful close in 1918
There are still folks who think this is no big thing, that it’s being blown out of proportion by a crisis-hugging media falsely stoking fear–my otherwise passive in-studio text line was flush Friday morning with a mix of folks who’d credit us one minute for informing the public and blaming us the next for dealing in scare tactics, some swearing that they’ll never listen again. You don’t have to go far to find those who dispute the comparisons between this flu and the aforementioned Spanish strain but even some of those folks will say we need to take action as they question the math. Others think the seasonal flu is worse (true, it’s killed more people in the U-S as of this writing) and that this is just a mild strain that’s getting way too much attention/energy. Then there’s the blame-game crowd, eager to point fingers at foreign countries or the opposition party up to and including “The Deep State.” And, it would seem that no matter what folk believe, there are far too many who think NOW is the time to panic-buy even as they willingly tell local TV reporters they aren’t freaking out and “just want to be prepared,” all as they pile a year’s worth of pasta and White Cloud into the back of their mini-vans.
Thanks for making a bad thing worse. Your time can be better spent doing other things, and Lord knows we all have a little extra now days, what with all manner of sports and other amusements on hold. That may grow as schools go to online teaching and work places allow more of us to do the job from home, if possible. What should one do with those bonus hours and minutes?
Let’s assume that we all will use this opportunity to volunteer: help out a charity you might have a personal attachment too. Give blood–they ALWAYS need more, and times like these can mean a drop in regular donors. Find out where your church or community could use a hand. Clean out your basement and do a solid by dropping what you aren’t using at Goodwill, St. Vincent dePaul or the Purple Heart. Or, you could look at that mountain of unneeded non-perishables you just panic-bought at Pick ‘n Save and take some of it to a food bank for people who are truly in need of it. Just a thought. Double-back on that New Year’s resolution to self-improve: re-introduce yourself to that basement workout gear that is now draped in laundry. Talk a walk: spring is reluctantly here, with each passing snow-free day a promise of better times to come.
And when you’re done doing good, self-indulge. You deserve it! Binge watch a TV series you didn’t finish (“Ozark” tops my list of some eleventy-seven shows I need to get conversant with). Turn the streaming spigot to “MOVIES” and let the good times flow–flex new cinematic muscles by introducing yourself to foreign films (subtitles are your friend) starting with this year’s Oscar winner, “Parasite.” Catch up on classics you’ve never seen (I have yet to fiinish “Citizen Kane” and the holes in my movie game are massive). A fun parlor game to play while trapped indoors is to match up titles you’ve never seen with those around you–chances are you’ll feel alot better about your cinematic self.
It’s also a chance to check a few boxes off that list of things you’d always promised you’d try to do: learn an instrument, take on a foreign language. Read books–another fun fact is that the printed work existed on paper before it light up on a computer screen next to a picture of a puppy in a Twitter feed. Those words told timeless stories, detailed moments in history where our predecessors persevered, coped, created and sadly sometimes failed in their dealings with past travails. Trust me, its good stuff!
And don’t forget local businesses. See more than the inside of the grocery store, especially the t-p aisle. [Editor’s note: this is the part of the blog where I originally urged you to support your local bar/restaurant/eatery. Events/CDC advisories/orders from the Governor’s office since the original posting render that suggestion moot. Some places are converting to carry-out/drive-thru service only which should meet new mandates and keep you from social media shaming. All joints will need said support when we reach the other side of this viral abyss, so save your bucks for that joyous day]
This is a challenge, for sure, but it’s also an opportunity for all of us to be our better selves, to do good things for others while improving ourselves, While large group gathers are verboten, fun isn’t. You can still have as much as you want, last I heard.
What you CAN’T have is all of the toilet paper. Or soup, Or any other non-perishable you think you need to corner the market on. Stop that. Now. Everyone poops, the book of the same name reminds us. We all clean up after, too. Besides, this is a respiratory illness, not a digestive one. And as you pour that next glass of Purell-on-the rocks from a bottle taken from your stash of 700 cases you panic-bought at Costco, remember there’s still good ol’ soap and water, H-2-O that streams endlessly from the tap. Last I heard, there’s still plenty of Zest, Irish Spring and Ivory on the shelf.
Someone sagely says that coronavirus won’t bring civilization to an end but that it will certainly show us where the cracks in it are. No matter where this outbreak goes, it has more than certainly accomplished plenty of that already. It’s revealed holes in our public health game, the vulnerability of some in our society, the reliance kids in major cities have on our public schools for things beyond education (like food). Once we’re done dealing with this, we can maybe put politics aside and start dealing with those issues so that, when there’s a next time, we’re better prepared. We’ve seen Congress start this weekend with a measure born of bipartisan support, so there’s that. A guy can hope for more, but maybe that’s just my fever talkin’ (just kidding, I’m fine).
Off to spark the big-screen and watch some stuff. Maybe I’ll build a fire. Perhaps I’ll pop some corn. There’ll CERTAINLY be a beverage. Or two (you have to self-medicate, y’know).
None of it happens, though, until a vigorous washing of hands.