TomFlannery.com

Today I actually had to drive someplace other than a store. I haven’t put gas in my car since early March. It felt so strange as I pulled into normal highway traffic….like I was doing it for the very first time. Who the hell were all these people and where in the world were they going?

Construction zones are pandemic proof, apparently. I was somewhat surprised to see interstate 81 exactly as I remember it, filled with orange signs and single lanes and closed exits going north AND south, but with seemingly no workers at all. Apparently I just missed an accident that had it backed up for miles. It’s like the previous 120 days hadn’t happened at all. I expect the road work to last much longer than this pandemic. So we’ve got that going for us. Which is nice.

At any moment I felt like I might die, as I seemed the only person not in a murderous rush to reach my destination. I knew exactly where I was going, and was pretty confident that the place wasn’t going anywhere. So I kept to the speed limit, which pissed off just about everybody in my path. I was reminded yet again why driving is just below getting a root canal without an anesthetic on my list of favorite things to do. The ride home, in which I nearly got decapitated by dueling tractor-trailers, was even more exciting. You can get used to a lot of things, but something you hate intensely is not one of them. No thanks Bubba, I’d rather walk.

But there’s some other trips on the horizon…..so I’d better get re-used to it.

It’s been so strange….these last 4 months. I’ve finally got a hair cut and dentist appointment set up, two outings that are going to require regular pants and some form of hygiene. I’ve pretty much worn 2 pairs of sweat pants since March….along with the same 3 t-shirts. Each keeps getting washed then thrown back on top of the pile. I think the last time I wore a button down shirt there was snow on the ground. I haven’t shaved in weeks…and my shower schedule has been haphazard at best. But now that things are moving again, routines will have to become more normalized….clothes chosen more carefully. Eventually I’ll even had to get gas for something other than my lawn mower.

Just in time for the entire shithouse to go up in flames again, because cases now are much higher than they were when we shut down initially, and it’s only a matter of time before Wolf steps in and tries, yet again, to save his dumbest constituents from themselves. There is no plan for safely re-opening schools at the federal level (Betsy Devos is in charge…..let that sink in for a moment. A woman with the empathy of a diseased wildebeest and the brain of a zse zse fly, is IN CHARGE) ….so states are effectively on their own. When schools go back, if indeed they do, you’ll see that the amount of things that can go wrong, and the amount of things that will go wrong, will equal each other. So despite all the caterwauling that will result when the announcement is inevitably made, the state, along with the rest of that nation, is gonna be forced to shelter in place this fall and winter. Because there are still too many knuckleheads out there. And it’s gonna cause immense sorrow and pain for small businesses. Because we don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. If we did, we might end up like New Zealand. Virtually virus-free.

But we’d gladly kill our neighbors to preserve our “right” to, well…..kill our neighbors. And I doubt the ones running around without a mask coughing on everybody could find New Zealand on a map. And besides…..isn’t it led by a….gulp….woman?

This is all uniquely depressing. I cringe when I see our numbers vs the rest of the world’s. I cringe when I see poor Dr Fauci, trying desperately to stay afloat in a sea of idiots. A man who has made it his life’s work to provide scientifically backed guidance in times such as these, being shouted down and shit on by a criminally negligent, obese man-child with a ridiculous comb-over and a bad spray-tan, who chooses to rely on the medical credentials of Chuck Woolery instead.

We deserve better.

But then again, maybe we don’t. You know what I mean?

In a bit..

–tf