(How to survive all this survival)
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This past week, South Carolina … like several other States … decided to Bah! Humbug the whole pandemic pandemonium and start reopening for business, in a measured and reasonable way, if you define “measured and reasonable” as “random and irrational.”

Reopening slowly, to be sure, but reopening nonetheless. And by “slowly,” I mean, of course, cautious and thoughtful (see measured and reasonable). It was a lot like some State-sized tipsy teenager grabbing the Jeep’s steering wheel and yelling, “Hey, y’all … watch this.”

(Film at eleven)

For example, some of the first businesses allowed to reopen are shooting ranges and tattoo parlors, because as everybody knows, the staples of life are eating, shooting things, and Hepatitis C. The recovering businesses will, of course, be required to ensure social distancing guidelines are enforced. (How you apply a tattoo from six feet away, I don’t know.)

Then, suddenly, everybody everywhere was wearing protective masks and gloves in public, as if the entire State was auditioning for bit roles in M*A*S*H.

We’ve all been faced with “new normal” adjustments. Last week, I attended a meeting on Zoom, then one on Microsoft Teams, then I got an Outlook message about a rescheduled Zoom meeting, then I attended the Zoom meeting, and then attended a Skype meeting. Later, I forwarded a fax to an Apple Mail message about a rescheduled Go-To-Meeting meeting using Microsoft Remote Desktop, all being organized by middle management using emojis on facebook. (some of that, I made up)

In other pandemic-response-related news, I recently received spam with this subject line: SCIENTISTS DISCOVER HIDDEN SEX ORGAN

Great. Just when South Carolina suspended our “stay at home” rules.

After our extended enforced quarantines, some South Carolinians were understandably confused. Here are some examples:

• At a beauty salon in the State’s capital, five women with equally Neanderthal eyebrows got into a “who’s next” fight
• At least one disoriented driver pulled up to a toll booth and tried to order a sausage biscuit
• Due to the virus-based enforcement of fifty-customer-max rules, large crowds formed outside a coastal Walmart, where there were reports of several spontaneous wedding proposals

But lest anyone think South Carolina has been a mid-pandemic silliness singleton, here’s an unordered list of national observations of oddness:
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Thousands of members on facebook have begun playing some kind of “pick your birth meat” game. This may be the single strongest argument yet for letting America get back to work.

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As business enterprises struggle to recover, we hear that Joel Osteen is planning to offer two-for-one salvations.

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Missouri is suing China for unnamed damages.

I got twenty bucks that says China will be represented by Gloria Allred.

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Here’s some sad news: due to Covididity concerns, the city of Deerfield, Michigan, is postponing its annual Testicle Festival. The actual newspaper headline read “TESTICLE FESTIVAL ON HOLD,” but that’s its own joke, isn’t it?

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Congress, apparently forgetting that they’d already worked a day this month, suddenly returned to Washington to vote on spending lots of borrowed money as quickly as possible, unless it makes Trump look good.

Since the intent was to help keep shuttered small businesses afloat, they naturally handed over 8 million taxpayer dollars to Harvard University, an institution that’s sitting on a $40 billion endowment.

When the news cameras turned on for live coverage of the Congressional session, I noticed that every member was wearing a mask. But that’s its own joke, isn’t it?

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And the 2020 Presidential election season continued without much pause, of course. Presumptive Democrat candidate, Joe “Sniffer” Biden, assured the nation with this claim: “I am the only candidate who can beat Ronald Reagan.” Presumptive Republican candidate, Donald “I’m not my President” Trump countered with, “Joe, I knew Ronald Kennedy, and you are no Jack Reagan.”

(I love the word presumptive. Sniffer Joe, of course, thinks it means “before sumptive.”)

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For his part, President Trump made an admittedly weird comment, concerning Corona cures, about ingesting Lysol, or exposing humans to really bright light, or something like that. Depending on who you ask, he was either being sarcastic or serious. (Him: sarcastic. Everybody else: serious.)

For the record, let me just say this: people who think Trump was seriously advising Americans to swallow Clorox are the reason we have “DO NOT USE WHILE SLEEPING” warning labels on hair dryers.

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Finally … I was going to ask if we really, seriously, honestly have to tell idiots not to drink Lysol or other disinfectants. But then I remembered…

Tide Pods.
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