This morning, Saturday descended upon the outpost here in the same fashion and manner it always does.

Case in point, Faith sits here at my left offering herself up as a martyr to the deadly Everything bagel which has been lovingly slathered with the requisite volume of cream cheese flavored……

Cream cheese.

What did you think I was going to say?

Naturally, the occasion of our collective mastication was prefaced by a morning visit to the social media chamber where I scrolled through my notes from the last few weeks looking for some inspiration which I could use to delight an otherwise dull internet.  The scrolling was intermittently interrupted by inspiration seeking glances at the picture of the full sized, chocolate brown poodle which is featured this month on the “Pooping Pooches” calendar.

His name is Caspian.

While achieving minus four degrees, my second favorite version of Monkey Wrench performed live came up on the shuffle.  I’ve discussed my favorite version here before.

In a little less than three hours, Faith and I will be at the vet for her semi-annual exam.

She’ll be irritated at me for taking her to be poked, prodded, and harangued.  At the same time, I’ll be just a little irritated that I’m paying to have her poked, prodded, and harangued.  The only difference is that one us will understand it’s all a necessary evil.

For what it’s worth, she’s already talking to me now about going for a walk in hopes of exposing me to that virus that has recently attacked the value of the aggressively invested mutual fund shares I have nestled in a defined contribution plan.

“Lady, if you get me sick, who do you think is going to share his Everything bagel with you?”

I’m starting to wonder if it’s the monsters under the bed which endeavor to disseminate the coronavirus.

It’s not like the monsters under the bed have never done this before.

After all, they gave us killer bees, SARS, the Y2K bug, the Mayan apocalypse, and the population bomb to name a few.  Much like the Game of Thrones finale, all failed to live up to the hype.

I’ll grant the fact that a couple of those items were slow moving disasters which were corrected under budget and on time.  Even still, full blown panics were still in effect.

Effect, affect, take your pick.

Even still, the thought of poo-pooing the premise that the coronavirus is nothing but a market correction device strikes me as a bit dangerous.

The problem is that those in charge of telling us what’s going on can’t be trusted anymore.

This time around, there seem to be other signs.  Just yesterday, we received word at the auxiliary office that all extra-curricular events for the month of March have been cancelled. 

The International Women’s Day events which were scheduled to take place in the big conference room just outside the café were recast as virtual vaginal celebrations.  The volley ball tournament was cancelled.  The month’s mentoring trips to a local middle school was cancelled.  The café has removed it’s buffet and salad bar stations.  There will be no Toastmaster’s luncheon.  Even the site-wide pitch involving a pyramid scheme was been put on ice.

Interestingly enough, the sales pitch involves virus resistant ice.

Those of us with laptops received a note to verify that we can access the network from outside the office.  That generally means that within a matter of weeks, we’ll be told to work from home for awhile. 

Looks like I may have to stock up on my Everything bagel supply and forego the lemon poppyseed muffins on Monday through Thursday for awhile.

Biscuits and gravy happen on Friday, y’all.

But it gets worse, because I have a few things going on this summer.

There’s a stadium tour coming through town in June which features a few artists I haven’t seen before, but would like to before either they or I die from an undisclosed illness, or one born of the monsters under the bed.

If the global concerns about this virus carry live up to their full potential, I envision any of the following outcomes:

• The tour will be cancelled out of concerns over the virus.
• The tour will go on, but it will be really easy to get good seats because people will avoid the show.

My prediction:

Ridin’ into danger, laughin’ all the way

Fast, free and easy, livin’ for today

Rocking until I drop isn’t the only thing on the agenda though.

Junior’s getting married in July to a young lady who so far has survived the trials and challenges involved with joining the organization.

At this point, a typical wedding with a herd of delegates from either side of the coupling is being planned.  Afterward, a honeymoon trip to a popular resort is planned.

“Planned” is the operative word there.

All of this because the monsters under the bed may have teeth.

Ladies and gentlemen, now that the table has been set, I think it would behoove us to engage in some good old fashioned blame assessment.  There’s got to be a reason the virus is picking up traction which goes beyond the conspiracy theories that it’s just a weaponized virus that got out of hand. 

Consider the following.

The state of California seems to have quarantined itself off because of the virus.  This is aside from the fact that it should have done so a few years ago when they allowed their homelessness and award show hosting situations to get out of control, thus ushering in diseases from the middle ages.

Plastic straw production has suffered in recent years because of some misplaced notion that making them available to the turtles to shove up their noses is a bad thing.

A rich and diverse cast of candidates transcending race, creed, gender, orientation, mental acuity, and generally woke assholiness endeavored to capture the Democratic nomination this year, and that group has been whittled down to that sector that the party generally hates.  Two old white guys who have trafficked in hypocrisy, envy, and bouts with reality now endeavor to capture the White House, and neither of them show the promise of being available for a second term.

Major League Baseball made a recent determination that beating on trash cans to signal an off speed pitch to the batter is up there with juicing and split fingered monkey balls.

A senior member of the royal family quit his job.

The Zack Snyder cut of Justice League remains unreleased.

The popularity of Nickelback is experiencing a resurgence.

Any one of those innocuous events could have triggered unintended consequences and a subsequent worldwide panic.

It’s up to us to determine if any of these instances caused all of this bullshit in the first place, and put a stop to it