With all of the time I’ve spent at home since March 10th, one would think that I would have dispatched a significantly higher volume of taciturn babbling to the last bastion of entertainment that hasn’t been compromised by the some wet market stationed in a prime, high foot traffic position along the Yangtze river.

Yeah, I could have made a reference by name to the capital city of the Hubei province in the PRC where patient zero of this worldwide event made itself known.  At this point, we’ve heard that name too many times in the last month.  Making a direct mention of it now is played out and ranks up there with making a criticism that MTV no longer plays music videos.

And speaking of jumping the shark, just how many more tributes to Tom Cruise dancing around in his tighty-whities to an old Bob Seger song do we have to endure?  The undies are close to 40 years old now.  The scene was tired when it first hit the screen all those years ago.  Move along people.

A mere 30 days ago, I was glad that March had arrived.

Let me correct that.

A mere 30 days ago, I was glad that February was gone.

I was anxious for the arrival of spring and an upcoming week of vacation.  Winters are mild here in Texas compared to what they are in Wyoming where I grew up.  Even still, I derive no pleasure in them no matter how inconsequential they are to my frame of reference of what winter should be.

Suffice to say, my own personal laptop was hijacked from me about 24 hours ago after I had fat fingered the content you’ve read to this point.

Something about not being able to access a certain website on the other laptop, DNA sequences, and what I’m thinking was a bad case of the malware that arrives after the 60 day trial period of virus protection expires necessitated this particular machine being relocated to a different room for an hour or so yesterday.

By the time I got it back, I was partaking in the great streaming service binge of 2020 while intermittently addressing  the nervous dog (it rained all day), a phone call, and a realization that Will the Grill had disappeared.

For all tents and porpoises, bulk trash pick-up is taking place tomorrow and Will had been placed at the curb last week.  The Red Growler and an elliptical machine are going out there today.

None the less, I sit here now in a vain attempt to recall the verbal imagery I endeavored to weave yesterday when the very device that allows me to soliloquize to the worldwide web was absconded in favor of more productive activities required of the grad student that we currently have on staff.

I had this grand idea of grabbing a picture of Peter Falk describing a book to a young Fred Savage about how the story had all types of stuff in it about meth mouth, polygamy, mullets, firearms, murder for hire, amputations, and tigers.  I considered a similar picture of Buzz Lightyear describing the same content to Woody.

At the same time, any memes created around the latest documentary series that everyone is watching during their self- quarantine boarders up there with tighty-whities being featured in a Dominos commercial.

So just to summarize, I made the meme, but opted not to post it here because it’s just low hanging fruit.

In conjunction with that, I’ve seen references to this year as that of a dumpster fire.

Honestly folks, I bristled at the characterization and have to disagree.

Yes, this virus sucks, bites, and blows.

Social distancing sucks.

Constant handwashing generally sucks.

Putting ourselves in self-quarantine sucks.

Scheduling trips to the grocery store around when we think the two-ply and hand sanitizer will be on the shelves sucks.

Shopping for masks sucks.

Shutting down a bustling economy sucks.

Losing 25% +/- value in our investments sucks.

Having a national focus on the availability of ventilators and testing kits sucks.

Not knowing when it will be over sucks.

I’m reminded of the movie Apollo 13 in this case.  Towards the end, NASA is preparing for the return of the astronauts and they’re talking about everything that could go wrong and characterized it as a disaster.

Gene Kranz (portrayed by Ed Harris) then spoke up and announced that this would be their finest moment.

And it was.

I dare you to watch that scene and not get goosebumps.

Once we get past this, things will get better.

The economy was good and had to be shut down for a while.

It will come back with a roar.

Unemployment was way down, and it will come down again.

Human ingenuity has been tasked with an objective and will follow through.

We’re doing what we can to keep the world running by stepping outside of our comfort zone to make sure things get done so as to set the table for recovery.

It’s been nearly twenty years since this country was wholly unified around a matter.  At the same time, I can’t think of one single event in which the whole world was unified in the manner it is right now to defeating this thing.

So let’s make it happen.