Like billions of people around the world my family and I are trying our best to get through the coronavirus crisis, elbow-bumpin’, hand washin’, sanitizin’ and choking back sneezin’ so as not to get it or spread it.

Of course, this is a serious situation but I always find letting my mind wander a bit helps me cope with tough times, so here goes.

Let me start with something that started with guilt and quickly morphed into a sick moment of entrepreneurial thought. Without getting too clinical, yeah, I was about to use a roll of Charmin the way it’s meant to be used. But as I tore off a few squares I suddenly felt guilty of using what’s become more or less contraband. Fear of long-term quarantine has people scooping up every roll of TP as if two-weeks at home means constant crapping.

Speaking of which, check out this listing on eBay hawking the stuff at 8 bucks…a roll! Some of the comments didn’t hold back on the human sphincter behind the listing.

Moving on..thankfully, I had a scary vision regarding all sports shutting down. We had planned to eat dinner at a popular sports bar. One with dozens of screens all around so you could normally watch hockey, basketball, baseball, golf, soccer, NASCAR, goat roping, ring toss or amateur cherry pit spitting…. all at the same time!  With none of those sports, except maybe the pit spitting, off the grid for now, I started shivering in fear I would look up at the walls to see repeats of “The View” and the “Murphy Brown” reboot on every screen. Thankfully, the screens were thoughtfully populated with ESPN sports casts, reruns of key sporting events, and yeah, I think one did have the live broadcast of cherry pit spitting…until one competitor breathed in at an inopportune time and shot the pit into his gullet and had to be given the Heimlich Maneuver. It was fairly exciting and actually have bereft sports bettors something to wager on. His survival was the “under.”

My wife reported to me that eggs were in short supply at the grocery store. Really? It’s not like bread or flour or canned goods. You can’t really stockpile eggs for long. Are people mass-cooking frittatas and freezing them? I dunno. Sounds like a rotten idea.

I know a lot of companies are having their folks work from home. Since I’m semi-retired and mostly freelance I work from home about 99% of the time. If I get sick I figure it’s because I didn’t clean my microwave often enough and whatever’s growing in there is more contagious than “Old Town Road,” but only half as infectious.

Yes, we must be very vigilant to take care we do our parts to stay healthy and considerate during this pandemic. But I don’t let it get me down. In the wise words of Wavy Gravy during Woodstock, “there’s always a bit of heaven in a disaster area.” And probably toilet paper too. 

Stay safe and healthy!