(The ever newer new normal)
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Corona.

Barely six months ago, who could’ve ever imagined that something from China, named after a beer from Mexico, and shorter than Danny DeVito could bring an entire nation of swing voters to their knees?

But here we are – most of America is now moving into Month Three of the United States’ Nanny State’s publicly-exposed pornography: it’s an election year, so everybody be very afraid, stay in your house, and we’ll pay you to not work. See you in November!

To be sure, the side effects of being a modern-day, government-enforced monastic recluse are interesting, if not downright bizarre. Due to “sheltering in place,” my little Hyundai is currently getting about three months to the gallon. And that’s handy, given that my electric bills recently have swelled up like Chris Christie at an IHOP syrup buffet.

I’m also working a lot more jigsaw puzzles than I ought … but I’m getting better at it. One recent jigsaw puzzle box said “8 Years And Up.” But I finished it in just under two weeks. HA!

Another new new normal example: during the hermitage, my house has gone up in value … again! (according to unsolicited email from something known as “Zillow”) I didn’t realize that not opening my garage door for two months could have such a positive effect on the real estate market.

If not vacuuming has the same effect, I could sell the place and retire to an island.

Speaking of spam (yes, Zillow, that’s you), the email spammers have adapted a bit in their marketing schemes during pandemania. In the old normal, I would mostly get offers to enhance my sex life or shop for burial plots (at my age, I’m too tired to explore that juxtaposition). But in these dire days, there’s no imaging what I’ll be offered next. Not long ago came an offer to buy something called SCRUNCH BUM BOOTY SHORTS.

I’m still not sure if that’s clothing, a snack, a dating proposal, or some new film collection on Netflix.

Last week, a tire store email teased me with an all-new “contact-free” tire purchasing experience. In my life, I’ve been through some smarmy shopping experiences, but I’ve never popped out to buy some tires and gotten groped by the guys in the garage.

Oh, what I must have missed.

But now there seem to be signs of change, or isolation easing, or outright insurrection. Citizens of the more-or-less United States are getting sick of buying toilet paper at hotel mini-bar prices … if they can find any to buy at all. And they’re sick of being told to stay at home, eat at home, teach at home, vacation at home, and ration toilet paper and tissues as if they were stranded on a desert island with Tammy Faye Bakker.

States are done. Protests are everywhere, and many of the protesters make a point. We’re not all New York City, they say, and we can prove it if you’ll just stand downwind. A good example of “let my people go” is South Dakota, where nobody’s had a cold since Thomas Jefferson’s nose on Mount Rushmore sneezed out a stone mason.

So, across the land, ham-handed MARIA efforts are underway (MARIA: Make America Relatively Important Again). New York Governor Andrew “I said I don’t want to be President” Cuomo is going to allow horse racing to resume, but with no fans at the track. I suppose wagering will be done remotely, and those betting on the ponies will have to depend on a wire feed for the results.

I think I saw this once in a movie, played out by Paul Newman, Robert Redford, and Robert Shaw.

NASCAR’s about to restart, too, also without any fans hemming in the oval tarmac and eating chicken out of Coleman coolers. Speaking for myself, I’ve never acquired that I live for car racing gene, but to each, his or own. Personally, if I want to watch people race around in circles half-heartedly trying to avoid collisions, I’ll sit in on a Marketing meeting.

Some short-sighted venues are covering number keypads with plastic. Thanks. So I guess the thinking is that everybody in the joint will be touching the plastic, instead of everybody in the joint touching the numbers. Hopefully, the Mexo-China-DeVito virus is two-dimensional, and very stupid.

Most bizarre of all – possibly – is a restaurant in South Carolina that intends to resume inside seating … but to ensure “social distancing,” they plan to pre-seat blow-up dolls at every other table.

Let’s just hope they’re appropriately dressed. I’d hate to be negotiating fresh pepper with the pepper waiter while some waxy, pale patron at the next table is proposing we bust through a few Commandments.

By the way, somebody on facebook just shared a 20-minute video of somebody dicing up a whole tuna to make sushi.

We have got to get back to work.