There’s a fallacy in the argument, the premise no longer holds. Everyone is pining for a return to normalcy but what if the world we considered normal was actually insane?

I’m reminded of a commercial where someone with peanut butter bumps into someone with chocolate. There’s a standoff. It looks like things might come to blows! But this is a commercial and nothing in advertising ever comes to blows unless you’re selling John Cena.

There was a time when getting your peanut butter in my chocolate was a moment of shared revelation. Where two opposing flavors come together, where two opposing sides take a reluctant nibble only to realize that by coming together the world is a yummier place.

But those days are gone – and they were never real to begin with – it was all manufactured by hucksters who sold us a lifetime of submissiveness to nonsense, materialism and early-onset Diabetes.

Don’t worry, this ain’t getting deep.

I’ve been reluctant to say anything. This is one of those moments when I don’t know what to say. I’ve got nothing. I have a hunch. I have a few hunches. I have feelings. I have all sorts of feelings. I even have a few cover songs I’ve been noodling around on to help express the swirling uncertainty. But I don’t know what to make of this mess. I don’t even know what to call it. 

A Global Pandemic?

The Year Of COVID-19?

CoronaVirus Sweepstakes?

Who the Hell knows. 

Listen.

We didn’t want to talk about difficult things when Colin Kaepernick took a knee, maybe that was the problem. We didn’t want to talk about difficult things when 20 school children were shot dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School, maybe that was the problem. We didn’t want to talk about Charlottesville or sit our lazy ass down to read The Mueller Report or circle back around to tell The Dixie Chicks we were sorry for how they were treated when all they were doing was coping.

Now they want to Liberate Virginia. Now they want to Liberate Michigan. Now they want to Liberate Minnesota.

The same hucksters who sold us The Tea Party, the same hucksters who sold us Birtherism, the same hucksters who sold us The Southern Strategy, the bigots want to sell us Liberation. They’re terrified because we’re actually doing something we’ve never done before…

DEALING WITH THE PROBLEM.

Do you think I like wearing a mask? It looks creepy, my breath tastes like a dog kiss and when the mask sits on top of my nose, it fogs up my sunglasses. It’s a pain in the ass. 

Do you think I like Social Distancing? It’s like having a bad dream where I’m transported back to how I treated women in my 20’s out of an extreme case of shyness. I overcame the shyness by cozying up to players so I could learn the pantomime of confidence. It worked! Then I shed the players. They were hucksters dressed up as frat boys.

Do you think I like Shelter In Place? It’s good for rain boots, winter scarves and dildoes. It’s nice to know where they are when the occasion calls for it. I miss going out into the world. I even miss going to the gym. Never thought I’d crave the monotonous torture of the elliptical machine but I cannot fool my body into thinking of my home as a place for pushups. My body knows where it is, and in this context, my body wants to noodle on the guitar, snack on dried Life Cereal, let in the upstairs neighbor’s dog to say hello when he comes trotting down the stairs on the way to his morning poop.

Speaking of poop…

You know who I blame? I blame England. I blame England for BREXIT, which started this Plague of Nationalism. I blame the doctors and nurses in England who treated Boris Johnson. They should have turned him away, let him wheeze until his lungs filled up with bigoted lies and collapsed. Now we have Mini Boris Johnsons driving around America in pick-up trucks, taunting nurses in scrubs, yelling bigoted insanity.

“Go To China!”

Only without the English accent.

Pathetic.

Tell you what, sign the Go Cough On Yourself Waiver, whereby you relinquish all care from doctors, all care from nurses, all care from hospitals, all care from the rest of us who just don’t give a fuck.

Fuck. You.

If you don’t want to help the rest of us get a handle on flattening the curve, if you don’t want to deal with the problem, if you’re too caught up in yourself to push aside the coping mechanism of denial, then sign the waiver. When the curve spikes, when the hoax gives you a tickle in the back of your throat, you can dip your chocolate in my peanut butter and suck on it.

The world will be better off without you, pal.