Don't tell me no lies and keep your germs to yourself

04/10/2020 about 5 hours and 30 minutes after midnight the day before

Yea verily hairy creatures big and small,

Today marks the first time in about 3 weeks where I will be venturing forth into the disease ridden post pandemic world. Well except for when I was the driver when we went to Home Depot. Does that count? If it does then this is the second time. We have to stop at Home Depot on the way for supplies, so, more on that later. For now I have to plan my escape.

I have to go to the doctor today and it's a regular thing. This one is not one where they were willing to do it telephonically or by skype, because if it was I would have done that with a quickness to avoid the sickness. Nah, this is one where I have to actually show up, probably pee in the cup and get banged on the knees and elbows with the little hammer.

Anyway, no worries, I have a plan. No sweat. Usually I am a no new things, don't change things , curmudgeon kinda guy, but in this case, don't tell me no lies and keep your germs to yourself is my new motto.

When we stop at Home depot, I have to get 55 gallon Lawn and Garden trash bags, a pair of big yellow rubber elbow gloves, some fresh filters for my painters breathing mask, a spray bottle of glass cleaner for my diving goggles, a new roll of Gorilla duct tape and a pair of rubber boots. Once I have assembled all the needed supplies and donned my homemade Hazmat suit then I will be ready to enter the doctors office. Man, I don't even want to go. I am the demographic for who dies from this shit and do you know there is sick and injured people at Doctors' offices? Whose idea is this anyhow? Where is Karen? She needs to talk to the manager.

Sardines in the can are packed tightly for a reason

1. There have been more and more reported cases of infections and deaths in nursing homes where this disease gets a foothold and then just runs through the place killing everybody it touches in the process. Stephen King could not write a better ugly scary novel. My working title is "Exponential Death". One person gets sick and then they infect everyone else , before a single person realizes the original person is even sick. By the time they figure it out it's too late, because the rest of the staff and residents are already sick, dying and dead.
   
   Because of the advanced ages of the people who live there most of them die because their bodies just can't take the stress and poof just like that, Grama is gone. It's sad and inevitable at the same time. We are now reporting this is in the news like it is something we just could not have seen coming, when in fact, It's been coming to this for years. What did we think was going to happen? Especially after the dry run of Hurricane Katrina?
   
   We cut and cut and cut the budgets, got rid of all the planning experts, decided specialized training, insurance coverages and mandated federal levels of care were not needed year after year and this is the result of those decisions. Sort of like what happened with mental health care, but that's another pandemic, for another time.
2. I wonder what companies are going to do once this is over and we all start traveling back and forth to our dreary little lives in order to clock in and sit at our cute little cubicles, in front of our telephones and computer monitors, where we arrange our post it notes, stapler and telephone to our liking before we begin to work? What happens when they realize the amount of work they got out of their drones at the office was just about the same or more than the amount of work they got when everyone was pretending to work while they napped at home during the day? Oh oh, somebody gonna get busted.
   
   I wonder if there is going to be a new remote call to action as CEO's begin to downsize their fixed costs instead of their people for once , A new normal when they finally get their heads out of their proverbial asses and discover that all along it was the office buildings, the parking spaces, the office doors and the lunch rooms that really were the source of the drain on their economies? Maybe nothing happens however it's something to ponder as all of you remote keyboard warriors are called back to action once this passes.
3. Right now, today there are LITERALLY hundreds of millions of tons of food and dairy going to waste in the fields of the farmers and dairy producers in this nation. Farmers are making the agonizing choice to plow harvest ready crops back into the soil, to dump millions of gallons of Milk and other items directly into the trash because there is no demand for their products right now. With most restaurants closed in this country there are literally , and I mean LITERALLY billions and billions of dollars of food just going to waste. It's going to waste and there is almost nothing that can be done to stop it, to use it or to prevent it.
   
   It's almost the same thing that happened with Toilet paper. There are two markets for everything in this country essentially. A consumer market and an commercial market. When you close most of the schools, restaurants, business and the commercial consumers of produce and vegetables , you eliminate the orders that, in normal times, would use that product. The plants that produce consumer goods cannot easily supply the commercial markets and vice versa. A plant that is made to produce commercial Toilet paper for example cannot easily if at all switch to making it for individuals consumers. It's a different game making and shipping 12 packs rolls of Charmin and making and shipping a pallet of giant rolls for say, restaurant dispensers. Same goes for produce, vegetables and etc. It's a whole new world Waldo. Some of the companies don't even have the capacity to switch up to, as they didn't make commercial products anyway.
   
   The ones feeling the pain right now? The ones working their butts off? The trash man. Everybody is at home and trash is coming out of our perfect little houses at a record clip. The trash man is working extra days, extra routes and they are hiring like crazy. There's a whole new boom industry.
4. I have not heard the absolute latest status update, however a couple of days ago there were reports that a lot of the biggest movie chains might not be able to recover from being shut down for so long. Companies like AMC may close for good. Makes you wonder how and if new movies will be delivered and how and If we will be able to see new installments of a favorite movie like maybe Deadpool 3 or Venom 2. It wouldn't be the same trying to watch it streamed on an iphone. Not to me at least.
5. If nothing else, the Covid-19 response we have seen in the last few weeks should have taught us all some very powerful lessons beyond the stupid things like stop shaking hands, washing our hands more frequently and not to touch our faces as much. It should I think prompt a thought process in this country and maybe the world about taking the power currently enjoyed by the Insurance companies, away from them as they should not have had it in the first place.
   
   My opinion I suppose however i think there should no longer be decisions about medicine made by anyone who is not involved directly in the medical care of patients. WE should put Doctors back in charge of healthcare. I have no idea how to structure this however there are horror stories developing about people making the decision to not get treatment, because they can't get the support of their Insurance providers. Not to mention the lack of Insurance available by millions, or the millions of Uninsured because the products are so tightly controlled by the uber rich that this is the result.
   
   We need a national review of what we should make and stockpile in this country. We need a national review of health care policy, to stop a national HealthCare and Hospital company has absolutely REFUSED to let a Registered nurse take a leave of absence to go where they are needed and help to care for the sick and dying, unless they are willing to quit their current job and re-apply if they want it back when this is over. I know that seems overly dramatic, yet it is a factual retelling of an actual event that happened this week in Rome Georgia. It's disgusting.
   
   That's what happens when we put politicians, accountants and the rich in charge of our health care. What we are doing right now doesn't work, it sucks and it has to change. It wouldn't be like this if we would not put up with it. I won't hold my breath.
   
   See ya later I hope,
   
   BigMike