Um…

Stage 1: OH NO a Pandemic!! Grab all the Toilet paper! People shown fighting over 12-packs and 24-packs. Toilet paper lines form as the truck comes in for deliveries.

Stage 2: Oh No a Pandemic! All the Primary hoarders are hiding in their TP forts planning for the onslaught of gun toting TP thieves breaking into houses to get TP. HA! Secondary hoarders make themselves known. The fools are stealing the 1 ply rolls from the restaurants and gas station bathrooms. Toilet paper lines form as the truck comes in for deliveries.

Stage 3: oh no a pandemic. All the hoarders are peeking out from behind their TP walls, surprised not to see gangs roaming the streets with plungers threatening to clog toilets with napkins, paper towels, wet wipes unless supplied with 2 12-packs. Streets are empty. Toilet paper lines form as the truck comes in for deliveries.

Stage 4: oh no a pandemic? If the hoarders, primary and secondary, all have all the toilet paper they can carry and resell, and plaster their houses with, why is it still disappearing from the shelves? Tertiary Hoarders? “Ya never know when that truck is coming in…” Pay attention to when the coupons come out. That’s all I’m saying. You don’t need a supply for a month, take just enough to last you until next pay check. Do NOT spend your entire stimulus check on TP! Toilet paper lines form as the truck comes in for deliveries.

Stage 5: Oh No an epidemic. Those that didn’t panic during stages 1-4 are starting to get nervous now. They buy just enough to last 2 weeks. But they have to get to the stores early. Toilet paper lines form as the truck comes in for deliveries.

Stage 6: Oh No. People become creative with toilet brushes and hairdryers. Toilet paper lines form as the truck comes in for deliveries.

Stage 7: Oh. Hoarders quit buying Toilet paper. Everyone else quits buying burritos and chili. Toilet paper is being left on the shelves. Those that didn’t panic are starting to breathe again. Shorter toilet paper lines form as the truck comes in for deliveries.

Stage 8: Hoarders have to call contractor to add onto house so they have room for their 200 year’s worth of TP. More TP is left on the shelves. No toilet paper lines form as the truck comes in for deliveries.

 

 

New Ad Campaign!

I see you hiding behind the curtains. I see you with your 42 empty pizza boxes and cases of beer cans. I see you in your sweats with the stains on the front. Yeah You! You who haven’t seen the light of day in 2-3 months. You who don’t even bother to go out to get the mail. You who put a lovely picture of yourself on your site with your hair combed and your make-up on while you sit scrolling Face Book for 8 hours a day in your ponytail and bits of your pizza at the corners of your mouth.

You are going to need a coach to help you! Daniel will help you rebuild those atrophied muscles. Rebekah will bring you recipes and ingredients for wholesome dinners. Ron will drop by with a news paper with real news in it and read it to you so you can begin learning how to have actual conversations again. Jo will get you into home crafts like knitting and crocheting to help you relearn how to take directions. Bob will help you to reintegrate with your coworkers (who are mostly in the same sad shape you’re in) so you can begin to work together again. Mark and Betty will be over to help you weed your garden and get your lawn back in shape. Beverly will help you get your laundry done. Eagle and Sean will help you get all that accumulated garbage into the dumpster.

We are the Post-Shitstorm Team and we will get you back into civilization!

Call 1-800-555-HELP and we’ll be over.

CBS All Access

Remember Emily Litella? I want to continue her legacy. Yes.

“What’s this I hear about CBS All Access? I love Star Trek and Captain Piccard. (pronounced Pickerd) I wanted to see it so I looked it up in the TV guide. I went through 100’s of channels and though I found CBS, I didn’t find Captain Piccard. They say it’s all access! Pooh!!!

“I called them up and asked why I didn’t have access to All Access. They went on and on about subscription prices and terms and contracts and such. Then they explained that I would have to have an Aichdy Animal, and I don’t even know what that IS! Why would they require an exotic pet in order to watch Captain Piccard? I asked them if there was another way, and then they suggested a P Essfor and all I’d have to do is plug it into my TV. But I’d have to downlode and nap to watch any movies I have on disks. If I nap, I’d sleep through the movies wouldn’t I? This is outrageous!

“If it says All Access, it should BE All Access. I remember when I was growing up that all I had to do to watch anything on CBS was just turn to Channel 5. I remember this nice dial with numbers on it–13 of them. There weren’t 192 Channels that you needed a surgeon djin to find. Never did find one of those. It is my humble opinion that these people are not telling the truth, and I want to DO something about it!…”

“What? CBS All Access means access to ALL CBS? not CBS accessible to everyone? Oh. Like a secret, behind-the-scenes channel that no one else can see unless they pay?…Never Mind.”

________________________________________________________________

Aichdy Animal: HTML

P Essfor: PS4

Downlode and nap: Down load an app

Surgeon djin: Search engine

Bring back Sax and Violins to TV. Then we can hear Ravel and the kiddies can get a musical education!

Finally! A blog post that isn’t about the Covid19

Um

Getting Back to Normal

Measurable Progress applies in this case! More people falling ill or fewer? More people surviving or fewer? More people reconnecting with each other or everyone more isolated? How are we progressing? Are the steps we’re taking producing any results?

People are self isolating, self quarantining, except to go to the store and buy more toilet paper. I understand it now though. How many of you waited until you got to work and had your first 15 min break to use the bathroom? Ya, uhuh. See? We were all peeing on company time and using the company toilet paper. Who knows how much toilet paper you have to have to compensate for all the times you now have to go to your own bathroom? And all you folks that went to the restroom in the restaurants? And the movie theaters? And the doctors’ offices? We were unprepared to have to purchase our own toilet paper and of course we panicked! Did they do the math? “Honey? How much do you use every time you go?” “You mean you want me to count the sheets?” “Well…yes?” “And how often do you go every day?” Gets out calculator. Dang! We’d better stock up!  And of course, since we never take our calculators to the grocery store, we don’t know how many 2-ply or 1-ply sheets per roll and how well they, ahem, do the job.

What else are we unprepared for? Breakfast at home instead of in the car? Nobody brown-bagged their lunches at work. You’d have to label them and protect them from getting stolen. Wait, colas cost that much in the store? What a rip off they charge that much in the vending machine!!! Actual food for dinner? You CAN have all your favorite foods delivered to you, but those delivery charges will really mess you up! You gotta save your money now because they don’t need you and so they won’t pay you. Oops? We were supposed to save our money BEFORE everything got shut down and we all lost our jobs? How were we supposed to do that? OH and BTW, glasses or cups work great for getting water from the tap. Free water instead of paying for it? Well DUH! If you can tell the difference between filtered, mountain stream water from the pristine pipes in Detroit and the stuff coming out of your sink, well, you have a better palate than I do! And it means less plastic in the landfill or the oceans.

ANYWAY, we all want to get back to Normal. Or do we? What is normal? Is normal just something we’re used to? Will those working from home really want to go back to the office? Will they really want to get up and dressed and spend money on gas and drive-thru to sit in a stifling cube all day? Why go to a building where it takes you 15 min to get to the bathroom when you can work 6 feet from the bathroom at home? Why spend an hour in rush traffic twice a day instead of just moseying into your office in your sweats? Aren’t you more relaxed and less distracted? If you have kids and a spouse and pets at home, those can be managed, the quiet is unsurpassed. With no place to go, it doesn’t matter what the gas prices are. HAHAHA!  Take THAT OPEC! You can watch movies at home with the very best cub scout popcorn. You can cook with your spouse or SO. You can be adventurous and have stuff other than pizza and burgers.

Now even important meetings can be done remotely, and you can play solitaire during the boring parts. Check your email, change your status on FB. Just click your clicker when you need to.

Here’s the thing though.

NORMAL is the petri dish that made all this corona virus so virulent. Work this problem out. Find ways to be more efficient and actually enjoy the quarantine. Revel in your relationships with your spouse and kids. Enjoy the quiet. Work in your garden. Work puzzles together. Teach your kids how to play Monopoly and other board games. Get off your phone. Limit your time on the computer. Make a NEW NORMAL! It cannot go back to the way it was. The only way to put the worms back in the can is to get a bigger can. Once people have had to be innovative and resourceful, they may not want someone thinking for them. Once people have tasted self reliance, will they want to be dominated and made other-reliant again? Some will, some won’t.

What will you do? What is your new normal?

Apocalypse musings

In a world…

People are unusually opportunistic and resourceful. We all take that for granted.

Take the Zombie Apocalypse for instance.

An enterprising guy decides to have a delivery service so that people stuck in their bunkers can get resupplied with guns and ammo, bats, chain saws, and canned food without going outside.  He designs and builds a zombie proof car that runs on solar power. (I leave that up to the special effects crew.) Then he makes his own commercials and puts them on You Tube and copies everyone on his WordPress and Face Book accounts.

“Don’t want to leave the house?” Shows a zombie walking his zombie dog. A squirrel appears and the dog starts to chase it and pulls the zombie’s arm off. The zombie stands there stupidly and calls out, “Brains? Brains! You come back here, Right NOW!” The zombie dog pays no attention. Shows another zombie without arms staring at his mail box stuffed with mail. Shows another zombie jogging and getting clothes  lined by a low hanging branch. Top half falls off and legs keep going. Narrator continues, “Now you can get your shopping done on line and I will bring it to your house!” Shows Zombie machine driving through a neighborhood and the zombies with arms (including the upper half of the jogger) are waving. Our hero, in a zombie-proof suit, jumps out of the car and runs up with a package and rings the doorbell. He looks into the camera. “No more desperate runs, no more using up ammo to get canned peas! I can get your supplies to you so you don’t have to leave the safety of your bunker. And with this coupon,” he says raising a bright yellow coupon to the camera, “you can get an extended subscription to CBS All-Access and Netflix for free with your next order!” Shows zombie kicking tires of zombie machine. Foot falls off.

I have no doubt that services like this will arise during the Coronapocalypse. Somebody will figure it out and make a killing… oops bad choice of words.

Ooooo! New Computer!

Of course I can’t find anything that my hubby moved from my old one to this one.

I can’t reconcile the fact that I’m sitting on my mail account and reading my emails and such and it says that I can’t get into my account due to problem with my sign in options. “Just go to settings, privacy, sign-in options.” There isn’t a tab that says that. And…I am IN the account you said I couldn’t access due to my sign-in.

I have a brand new keyboard and after 3 weeks on it, A, S, E, O, and C are nearly worn off.

Well?

Not sure how this is going to go.

The Rough Day

We all have them: when the reminders of your short comings, the mistakes you have made that have changed the direction of your life or the lives of those you care about, and your misconceptions about “How the World Really Works” clash in one glorious explosion of guilt and remorse. That was my day yesterday.

I did my writing exercise: What is your favorite mistake.

I did my Bible study: Nothing you do can meet the standards of God, and everything you do during your life will be tested with fire. Will anything remain? The answer was no.

I watched a video of my brother’s memorial service and heard all the magnificent stories about what a great teacher, musician, and mentor he was. It reminded me of my Mom’s memorial, and then my Dad’s memorial. Each of them had made a significant difference in the world, influenced hundreds of students and colleagues, and were wonderful friends.

I pictured my own memorial after all the above pondering and concluded that I’m the Isaac in the story. Isaac was the bridge from Abraham, the father of nations, the first Hebrew, the originator of the line of Christ, and Jacob, the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. Isaac didn’t actually do anything other than fathering Jacob and Esau, the founding fathers of the Israelis and the Arabs.

I will never have those glowing words of affection from the leagues of students I’ve taught. I will never have those tear-drenched hankies from people that I have saved from ruin. I will never have those heart-felt testimonies from my sisters and brothers from another mother. My eulogy will be short. “Yeah, she was funny, that one,” followed by an uncomfortable silence.

Well, I’m 65. Do I have time to make a difference? I don’t know. I’m really good at things that in the long run make no difference. I have an encyclopedic knowledge of things that don’t matter. I have a lot of talent in areas that have no influence.

I know enough to know I don’t know enough. But it’s not just facts. I do try to understand people, but most of the time, they baffle me. Every time I think I understand the Bible, I get smacked in the head and discover a level I didn’t even realize was there. So I don’t understand humanity or deity. I’m a place-holder in life. What a weird position to be in!

Not as hard as I thought

Yup…I gave up Face Book for Lent. *Pats self on back*

It was so easy! I had no desire to scroll for 4 hours like I was doing just last week. I just didn’t log on. What kind of sacrifice is that? I nailed it!  I’m so awesome.

Then, *dat dat DAHHHHH* my Daughter sent pictures of my grandson running around, and my Son sent pictures of “leap day” where his kids leaped on him.  Ok, I looked at the Face Book and then got off. Just a minor infraction. Then I was notified that a friend of mine needed some advice regarding money. I never turn those down! The evil thing kept drawing me back into its warm embrace. Like the warm embrace of a boa constrictor.

I also gave up phone games for Lent. I had introduced this word stack game to my husband and though I was technically not playing, I was giving him hints on his puzzle. That doesn’t count does it?

That’s the thing with temptations. You don’t suddenly find a knife in your hand and a victim with a target on his chest. It’s a gradual move. One step at a time.

I was watching NCIS and Gibbs and McGee were being held captive. The only thing the captor wanted was Gibbs’ birthday. He was not asking for state secrets. He wasn’t asking him to bomb the pentagon or assassinate some head of state. He just wanted Gibbs’ birthday. In fact, he didn’t even want the truth, he just wanted Gibbs to talk to him and give him some information and get him used to doing that. If Gibbs refused, he’d beat him or waterboard him. For a birth date?! Yup. But all Gibbs had to do was take that one minuscule step and gradually, he’d be drawn into the traitors camp.

There was a story about a guy held captive and was beaten and tortured and starved to get information and he didn’t give it up. He was in bad shape. Then the new officer came in, cleaned him up and played chess with him and asked him nothing. They just talked. He then came in and asked advice, “What would you do if the Russians did this?” Not long after that, the captive realized he’d just given a master class on US tactics to his enemy.

On a good note, my phone usage is down 89% since last week. Games went from 60% of my usage to 4%. Social networking went from 20% to 2%. It’s hard not to grab it when I’m not engaging with someone.

So yeah, it’s harder than I thought because it’s sneakier than I thought.