I Made Fun of COVID-19, and Then I Got Sick

They’re wearing masks for the Spanish Flu (1918), but they’re not social distancing. Losers. (image via wikimedia)

I didn’t publish this blog post when I wrote it in early March, 2020.  A week earlier I had written about how much I’d appreciate a quiet Coronavirus panic because everybody would leave me alone (It was called An Introvert’s Thoughts On The Coronavirus (and other international scares) .

A few days later a real panic happened, people started dying because of COVID-19 (maybe), and I figured then wasn’t the time for a second humorous COVID-19 post.

Maybe I was wrong.  Maybe that would have been the perfect time to write a second humorous post about COVID-19.

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I MADE FUN OF THE CORONAVIRUS, AND THEN I GOT SICK

(originally almost published in early March , 2020)

I should have known this would happen.

Last week I wrote a blog post making fun of the possible Coronavirus panic.  I wasn’t making fun of Coronavirus.  I know it can harm people.  I was making fun of the panic.  There are a lot of things more deadly than Coronavirus out there, and nobody is panicking.

So when I felt cold symptoms hit me a few days ago, I kept my mouth shut.  I didn’t want anybody saying “Coronavirus” to me.  It’s not Coronavirus.  Whenever somebody coughs or sneezes, a bunch of co-workers jokingly say “Coronavirus.”  But they’re not joking.  They’re secretly wondering, “Could he be the host that will infect us all?”

Just so you know, I don’t have Coronavirus.  It’s a cold.  I get these twice a year.  I know how the symptoms of a cold affect me.

When I went to the local pharmacy to get a decongestant, the good kind, the one you have to sign for, the one you can make meth out of, the pharmacist gave me a list of free shots that she could give me.  Free shots?  Nowadays, I’m suspicious of anything that’s free.

What’s that conventional wisdom about consumerism?  When you have to pay for something, you’re the customer; when you get something for free, you’re the product.  I don’t want to be a pharmaceutical product by getting free shots.  Who concocted this free vaccine. Bill Gates?  The government?  The same government run by that president everybody claims to hate?  And I’m supposed to accept free vaccinations?  I’d ask for a list of what’s in the vaccinations, but I wouldn’t understand any of it.

Anyway, I noticed that all the cleaning products had been cleaned out of the store/pharmacy.  I guess everybody feels like cleaning houses when they’re Coronavirus panicking.  I have a cold, and I don’t feel like doing anything. My wife probably wishes that I’d get Coronavirus panic too just so that I’d clean the house more.  I do my share, but I’m not going to clean out a store shelf.

Hand sanitizer was gone too, but there was still plenty of soap.  People are panicking enough to keep their hands clean, but they’re lazy about their methods.  Hand sanitizer is for chumps.  I believe in soap-and-water, and I’ll sing “Happy Birthday.”  I might even sing it three times.  Happy Birthday is a good song.

I mean it.  “Happy Birthday” is musically more complicated than most stuff I hear on the radio today, and there’s no innuendo or double entendres in the lyrics.  I know Marilyn Monroe almost ruined it on JFK’s birthday, but that’s what you get when you mix the perverts of Hollywood and the perverts of Washington D.C.

Toilet paper was also gone.  I don’t want to know.

Even though hand sanitizer and toilet paper were bought out, there was plenty of cold medication, even the benign stuff that you don’t have to sign for.  I don’t know if regular cold medication will help with Coronavirus, but I’d rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.  Maybe panickers have the same attitude about hand sanitizer, except I don’t want hand sanitizer.  It feels greasy and unclean.  I think it’s a trick.

Some conspiracy theorists claim that Coronavirus is a hoax to sell hand sanitizer.  I don’t know because too many other businesses are taking a hit with the cancellation of travel and lack of major events.  I don’t think Big Hand Sanitation has that kind of clout.

My family still plans to travel over Spring Break.  We might even get cheaper rates because of the Coronavirus panic.  I should be okay by then.  I don’t want to still have this cold when I get on the airplane and then have to explain to everybody that it’s just a cold.  It’s not Coronavirus!!

If I don’t write another blog post, however, then you’ll know that something bad happened, something that indicates that I should have panicked more seriously.  I know that this just a cold, however.  I’ve taken my decongestant, those meth-lite red pills and I’ve had a few cups of coffee, that meth-lite dark liquid, and I’m feeling a lot better.  I know this is just a cold.

I really hope this is just a cold.

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UPDATE-

It was just a cold.  We didn’t go anywhere for Spring Break.  We haven’t gone anywhere for the summer either.  The cheapskate in me is glad we saved the money.  The introvert in me was glad not to have to talk to strangers.

What do you think?  Should I have published this in early March?  Should writers ever hold back In these situations?