(Adapting to a new abnormal)
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When you make a habit of writing humor columns, some weeks are easy. Others, not so much. On the off weeks, you just find yourself at week’s end, muttering at that meddling Johannes Gutenberg for making type so movable.

Granted, it’s true – sometimes when you log on, or tune in, or grab the paper, there’s a lovely wrapped gift right there before you. Low-hanging fruit just waiting to be plucked. Something along the lines of:

• Flight passenger attempts to reheat pizza by holding it up to the light above his seat
• Turtle crashes through windshield on Georgia highway
• Pair hired for man’s sexual fantasy turn up at wrong address
• Anything Joe Biden says

But sometimes comes a slog of dog days, lean weeks, when the news is full of Asian viruses (viri?), economic crises (crisi?), toilet paper hoarding, and people in Minnesota burning trash cans because, you know, racism.

Here’s an example: this week on the news, I saw a guy in Minneapolis leaving a Target with five flat-screen TVs. True, the Target was closed, its façade was shattered, and the guy was stealing the TVs, but you have to admire such appreciation for fine electronics.

Later, on Fox News, I watched a senator from Colorado being interviewed about the ongoing trash can hatred in Minnesota. From this, we can infer two things:

1. The governor of Minnesota won’t answer the phone
2. The senator from Colorado is running for re-election

I have never understood the point of protesters destroying their own stuff. I think I would want to destroy somebody else’s stuff first, see how I felt, then make a decision. Who knows…the first round of destruction might have left me all catharsis-calmed and I’d be able to just curl up for the evening in front of four or five flat-screen TVs.

To be fair, there was one bit of good news this week: NASA, Elon Musk, and SpaceX intend to launch the first manned rocket from US soil since the Shuttle program, unless somebody throws a baseball at the rocket’s window.

Meanwhile, the year of the Mexican beer virus from China continued, and the “how to behave during a Mexican beer virus” rules continued to change. Social distancing is still important, as are masks, gloves, frequent, vigorous hand-washing, and going out of business.

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Speaking of hand-washing, here’s an interesting historical sidebar. When hand-washing was first recommended to physicians by Ignaz Semmelweis in 1847, the suggestion was rejected on the basis that doctors were too busy and wouldn’t have time to wash their hands between patient visits.

Ultimately, though, everything worked out okay, because eight years later Semmelweis’ family had him put in an insane asylum, which is a severe but very effective form of social distancing.

Imagine what he tried to get his family to wash.

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But the CDC has now issued a new and improved set of rules, too (this is iteration 79-D, version 4, amended). Now, you must wear a non-Halloween mask unless you’re having sex while wearing a Halloween costume, and no handshakes are allowed afterwards. Though handshakes are out, as of today milkshakes are still okay, as long as you’re having sex from six feet apart. (see “pair hired for man’s sexual fantasy”)

More and more businesses have begun to re-open, only to discover that their trash cans had been burnt up. I even considered, for the first time in three months, actually going out to eat at a restaurant, but then realized that I couldn’t remember where any restaurants are.

Despite all this psychotic national behavior, the election year continues to continue … unfortunately. President Trump announced a pandemic-based farm aid bill and claimed that it would help farmers “get by, or more than by.” (He actually said that.) Joe Biden continued his basement bunker hibernation and held a virtual town hall, during which he was caught on camera trying to put latex gloves on his face.

And for the first time in its 124-year history, the Boston Marathon was cancelled. But not to worry – some organizers plan to arrange a “virtual” marathon, wherein people can just claim to have run the 26 miles.

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I’ll bet Semmelweis’s ghost and Jack Nicholson’s McMurphy will be watching the Boston non-athon on one of the ward’s flat-screen TVs … if Nurse Ratched lets them turn it on.