And then because I’m death obsessed these days, my mind drifted to January, 2020, which already feels like a thousand years ago, when we were reeling from the shock of losing Neil Peart and Kobe Bryant. Oh, and the apparent death of democracy but I won’t go there. But yeah, remember January? We collectively sighed Oh my God, when will this month be over and joked that it felt like a decade.
But then March, 2020 rolled up and said Yo, January, hold my beer.
April, 2020 stood in the wings, cackling and rubbing its infectious diseased hands together, and now we’re thrust into a strange new world of face masks and pop-up morgues.
Not to mention vacant cities that look like something out of a Mad Max movie. Holy hell, downtown Philadelphia is boarded up because restaurants and retail stores are frightened of looters with food insecurities.
Wut? Food insecurities?
Here’s the official definition from the dictionary:
“the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food.”
Welp, I’d never heard that term. If you had asked me, I’d have thought food insecurities was a new eating disorder, one which I was likely to get.
“I can’t eat this chocolate chip muffin, Gary. I like it but I don’t think it likes me back.”
Or:
“What the hell is that in my salad?”
Those are food insecurities in my world. Oh, I forgot one.
“Are there any animal products in anything I ordered?”
I’ve never really gotten over that time when Julie and I ordered banana bread pudding for dessert and learned, after devouring it, that it contained bacon fat.
Bacon fat in dessert. Who does that?
Yeah, yeah, I watch the Food Network. That doesn’t make it right.
Anyway, so assuming we live through the pandemic, the next stage of this apocalypse is mass looting by the starving, unemployed, i.e., everyone? You mean this here quarantine is the baby stuff?
Cool, cool, everything is fine. I’m sure my excellent mental health will see me through this...NEVER.
I’m not kidding, the scope of this thing is blowing my mind.
I’m trying to imagine a post pandemic world and I can’t. Even more shocking was how suddenly everything just stopped, and in just three weeks, for nearly all of us, our lives completely changed forever and it’s only just started! How can I even contemplate all the businesses that won’t be here anymore? The weirdness of everyone wearing masks. Never eating at my favorite Indian buffet again - oy vey, can you imagine ever eating at a buffet again?
Actually, I’m a food snob. I hate buffets, they’re gross. I make an exception for Sitar India but I honestly don’t know when I’ll ever feel comfortable in any restaurant again and I’m not even a germophobe.
And with all this on our minds, overshadowing everything are the daily prayers and thoughts and hopes and wishes that we and everyone we love stay safe and healthy.
Oh yeah, that. Somehow my goal for 2020 was never Hey, I had a virus and I didn’t need a ventilator!
Silly me.
Maybe if there’s a vaccine, maybe after we flatten the curve, all this will pass. The question is when.
It’s the waiting that’s the hardest part. For now, anyway.
