as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine
desertexposure.com
I was packing my bags, getting ready to leave for the airport when I got the text: “I’m here for you.”
“Thanks,” I wrote back. “Yeah, it’s a bad situation, but I’m sure it will be okay. I just wish the doctor would have some good news for a change. The series of enemas my father has to go through isn't going to be any fun, but what can I do? I asked the doctor how bad it was going to be since my father will be treated at home. He said it would be "explosive." And "messy." And who's going to have to clean it up? Me. He's my dad, so I can't leave it for my wife to do. Anyway, thanks for being there for me, but I've gotta go. I’m waiting for my Uber driver.”
“I AM your Uber driver,” came the reply, "and I'm here for you."
I’m glad he’s there for me because every month my elderly father likes to check his bank statement. Sadly, he’s been diagnosed pre-Alzheimer’s. One of the symptoms of the disease is it’s affected his relationship with numbers, so every month, after checking those statements, my father claims “those characters” down at the bank are cheating him out of his money, and my beautiful wife is the only one gullible enough to drive him there so he can harass the Vice-President of This or That in person.
“How did things go at the bank, pop?” I asked him this last time when they came back.
“Two men came in wearing masks,” he told me. “Thank God they were only there to rob the bank.”
I laughed at my father’s Caronavirus joke, but I had heard it before.
At the risk of a Hollywood celebrity accusing me of being a racing enthusiast, there’s a Chinese curse that goes, “May you live in interesting times.”
Well, we’re living in interesting times, my friend. So interesting that my wife is constantly after me to social distance when I go out and shower when I get back. Maybe it will be different when you read this. Then again, maybe not. Whichever it is, it won’t be the same.
“But the Coronavirus doesn’t affect the young,” I told her.
“You’re not that young anymore,” she told me back.
Whaaat?
That was news to me.
Well, maybe not to my knees.
Now that I think about it, it’s too bad I’m not young anymore. Back in my day, the popular pickup line was, “What sign are you?” These days it’s, “I have toilet paper.”
Things have gotten so bad my DOG doesn’t even want to shake my hand any more. So I wear a mask, I wear gloves, I sanitize, I disinfect, I wash my hands, my face, my donkey… you get the idea. And I do all of that without touching my face. Here’s a tip, if you hold a glass of Pappy Van Winkle’s premium bourbon in one hand and the bottle in the other, it keeps you from touching your face.
I was at Costco the other day with my father. Yeah, I know he should have stayed home, but YOU try telling him that. To be fair, he’s good the majority of the time, complaining mostly when he’s constipated.
Among other necessities, nitrile gloves were on my list of things to buy.
“How much are they?” my father wanted to know.
I told him.
“WHAT?” my father sputtered, his eyes wide with disbelief. “Why, those characters are nothing but a bunch of... Leave it to big business to gouge us during a pandemic!”
“They’re not gouging us, pop,” I told him.
“Really?” my father said, rubbing the white stubble on his chin. “Then get me a box.”
The problem is, not only do we have the Coronavirus to contend with, but we still have all our other ailments to deal with as well. I told you about my heart attack back in the September 2019 issue of Desert Exposure. What I didn’t tell you was, thinking I might not make it, I told my wife, “Honey, if I die, the contents in my safe are yours.”
My wife just smiled sympathetically.
“And everything else, too,” she said.
If I went to the hospital now, I would probably run into some dopey couple being told they tested positive for the Cornavirus.
“That’s just not possible,” they might answer back. “We protected ourselves by buying all the toilet paper we could find.”
I can even imagine them at home.
“Thank God the pandemic is over,” their kids might tell them once we’ve developed a vaccine and the economy is back on track.
“Just shut up,” they’d say, “and eat your toilet paper.”
My father and I were watching the news and they were reporting about a Broadway actor whose leg was amputated due to “complications from the Coronavirus.” That was the first time I had heard of THAT particular result from being stricken with COVID-19, so I wondered if the poor guy lost his leg BECAUSE of the Coronavirus or he lost his leg and just happened to have the Coronavirus. At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy nut, it sometimes seems to me that the government, the medical community, and the news media all seem intent on connecting the dots for me rather than just giving me the facts and letting me come up with my own conclusions.
“Who lost his leg?” my father wanted to know.
“Nick Cordero,” I said, telling him the unfortunate actor’s name.
“Never heard of him,” my father said, bluntly. “Too bad about his leg, though.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Too bad. This Coronavirus thing, I just don’t know. I’ve heard it even makes you lose one of your senses.”
“Of course it does,” my father confirmed. “When you get it, you lose your sense of humor.”
Lost yours?
