Social Distancing

Date:

(Social Distancing)

A Different Point of View

It was at the beginning of this Social Distancing movement when I went to the bank and saw all the tellers wearing gloves and some customers wearing masks. There were huge—and I mean HUGE—bottles of hand sanitizer at many tables for people to use. While standing in line, I made a joke with my friendly banker, Ben. I said, “Hey Ben, if a bank robber were to come now, do you know how I would fend him off?” After a slight pause, I added, “I would shake his hand and scare the heck out of him.” We both laughed.

Only, I laughed a little harder and choked a bit. When Ben heard me cough, he screamed, “23-19, 23-19!” Like in the movie Monsters, Inc. Next thing I know, CDC agents are climbing down the walls, jumping down from the ceiling, and grabbing me aggressively. I was stripped naked; my clothes burnt in a special containment unit, and I was taken home to self-quarantine myself. I kid a little here. I know that a lot of celebrities and some world leaders are isolating themselves and exercising self-quarantine. These are people with money who don’t have to work for a living.

How does a person like me, who lives from paycheck to paycheck and who has maxed out all of his credit cards while buying the latest cell phones for the entire family, can afford to self-quarantine himself? I mean, I have to open my business every morning for non-existent customers. Our governor is telling us that people over 65 years of age should stay home and not go out anywhere. This is Hemet, and ALL of my customers are over 65 years of age. How in the world, then do I stay open? I also have to make sure that I am at work before any of my employees show up so I can hide the time-clock and keep them from punching in as per the schedule. I then make them wait a few hours, pretending to look for it, before sending them home, just in case I do get some business.

I then have to calculate how much money I have actually lost at the end of the day before going home every evening. If I were to self-quarantine, who would then see my business going down so fast, like most red-blooded Americans, I don’t have any money saved up. My backup plan is no good now that the casinos are also closing for the foreseeable future. I’ve given up long ago on winning the lottery. The only thing left for me to do is to try to hide my sinister undertones when I call the credit card companies and ask them to increase my limit. I don’t want to spook them and then not be able to charge all my utility bills. As it is now, my payroll checks are bouncing higher than all the basketballs now tucked away in storage, as the season has ended prematurely. What is worst, my kids are now at home because all the schools are closed.

Social Distancing protocol says that we must stay at least six feet away from each other. My wife and I sleep in different beds, in separate rooms, and almost in different houses. I dare not give her a kiss, lest we have to gargle with bleach. (Don’t try this at home. It is very dangerous.) I dare not hug my kids, lest my kids wipe themselves with Lysol. When my kids are sitting in a therapist’s chair, twenty years from now, whining about their father not showing any affection towards them, I hope the therapist is smart enough to tell them that their father actually loved them too much. It is just that he couldn’t touch them, due to, you know, COVID 19. My wife would be telling a similar tale, only probably in two months from now. Once we used to worry about STD’s. Now that seems mild compared to Coronavirus.

By the way, I told my wife about the bank tellers using gloves to handle money. She thought that it was a good idea since she also handles money at our business. She decided to use gloves as well. I don’t know how to tell you this when I saw those medical gloves on her beautiful hands and that beautiful smile on her lips; I had this sudden urge to bend over and have my prostate checked. Go figure!

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