Tag: corona virus (Page 5 of 8)

A reader writes in…

Dear TotD,

Greetings and salutations. Actually, wait. Greetings or salutations. Pick one or the other. Don’t be such a greedy fuck all the time.

Long story short: I have murdered my entire family. Spouse, children, a beagle named Trevor. All dead. It was not a premeditated act in the sense that I had formulated a plan, but I had wanted to do it for months. Their deaths cannot be blamed strictly on the quarantine, but it sure didn’t help.

You should know that they went painlessly, except for Trevor. I hated that fucking dog. I took my time.

Anyhoo, here’s my question: What to do now? I would prefer very strongly to not be punished for my crime. Or crimes. I mean, the lawyers would probably say “crimes,” but in my mind the massacre was of a piece. Oh, English! You befuddler!

Sincerely,
Finally Getting Some Peace And Fucking Quiet In Cincinnati

To which I respond…

Dear FGSPAFQIC

I choose “greetings,” as it is an honest word of Germanic origin, not the snooty Latinate birth of “salutations.”

Interesting news about your family. I am proud of your effort; many are falling into sluggish depressions during their self-isolation, but not you. That’s called work ethic, and it built America.

Furthermore, I cast no moral judgement upon your act. Maybe your family were all serial killers, or Nazi war criminals. There is a small, but distinctly non-zero, chance that your spouse, children, and beagle named Trevor needed killing. That’s life, man. Sometimes families, and beagles, need to die. More evidence is required before I call you a hero, but I am prepared to do so if the facts turn out in your favor.

I am, however, sad to say that you have chosen possibly the worst moment of the past century to murder your loved ones. All of your neighbors are home, bored, and nosey; they will notice you dragging bodies out to the car, or burying them in the backyard. You could bury ’em at night, you’re thinking, but you shouldn’t. Digging is much louder than you imagine it is.

Your best bet is arson. Soak the corpses in gasoline–

Shut the fuck up.

–which is real cheap now, and HEY! WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT THE BLOCK QUOTES?

Shut the fuck up. Just shut the fuck up.

DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO WHEN I’M IN BLOCK QUOTES! THAT’S MY SAFE SPACE

Shut the fuck up.

A reader writes…

Dear TotD,

Good morning, or afternoon, or evening, or perhaps you have bathed the stink of time from your skin and now exist all at once. I do so enjoy your semi-regular semi-humor. It has become the only non-terrifying part of the internet. Kudos!

Allow me to get to the point: My name is Pretty Albert Cookies, and I am a professional sporting gentleman. I love making connections between people! To this end, I now find myself trapped at home with four women whose affections I professionally manage. It has been three weeks, and they are colluding furiously. I fear mutiny.

TotD, how can I maintain my pimp hand under quarantine?

Dictated But Not Read,
Pretty Albert Cookies.

And I respond…

Dear Pretty Albert Cookies,

Time still enslaves me, but thank you for believing my will ferocious enough to buck its chains.

I will get right to your query, as it concerns your pimp hand, which is the more important of hands. Had your letter referenced your unpimped hand, it may have been tossed aside, but I believe in the sanctity of the pimp hand and will always assist a brother in need.

Two paths lay before us: the physical and the emotional. Do not neglect the physical, Pretty Albert Cookies! When was the last time you went upside someone’s head? Or stood over one of your associates with your pimp hand cocked threateningly? When I was a little boy, my grandma used to say to me TotD, keeping a pimp hand strong is not like a riding a bicycle. Man, I had no idea what the fuck she was talking about. But Grandma was right. Some muscle memory is long-term, others is short-term.

Your emotional pimp hand must also be exercised. Have you tried waking them up while wearing a scary wolfman mask? And screaming, of course. GRRRRROWL! I’M A WOLFMAN! you’d yell, and that would be so very frightening to wake up to. If you wake someone up like that, you have the upper hand in the conversation that day. What about dangling them out windows? Nothing gets women to behave–

No. No, no, no. Put an end to this.

–like dangling ’em out windows. WHAT?

I’m calling this one. It’s over. No more.

YOU CAN’T TALK TO ME WHEN I’M IN BLOCK QUOTES!

Shut the fuck up right now.

Greetings, you filthy boogermonster. If you’re here, then you must be one of the growing faction of Americans who have given up hope of ever living in a society again, and forsaken your daily wash-up. Good for you! Unlike those rose-colored sunglass-wearing assholes insisting that life will get back to normal, you know instinctively that you’re gonna die soon, drowning in your own mucus in a hospital tent hurriedly erected in the parking lot of a basketball arena, or quickly thereafter in the Mad Maxian hellscape that will arise when the economy craters for good. I admire your self-honesty, friend. Come! Let’s befoul our Personal Health Radii together!

THE “S” IN “NASA” STANDS FOR STINK The Gemini missions came after the Mercury launches, and they were America’s first dual-manned spaceflights. The series of missions were primarily for testing: docking two craft together, and extra-vehicular activities, and all that technical space shit. But Gemini 7’s objective was far more primal: Could two astronauts survive for two weeks in space without contracting filth-based diseases and/or killing each other? What the men discovered was that the human body can only get so dirty. One acquires, rather quickly, a sort-of protective layer of grimy sweat that repels further funk, and the astronauts reported that the stank got no worse after the third or fourth day. As to the second question regarding killing each other, it was determined that yes two men could perform professionally in such a confined spot, but you needed to pick the right men. You couldn’t send, like, Flavor Flav and Joe Exotic.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID Just because you’re not fully laundering your butthole doesn’t mean you can entirely ignore the area. Complete non-ablution of one’s hungry maw will lead to one’s buttcheeks gluing themselves together using dooky as mortar. Don’t let that happen; it’s how General MacArthur died.

STILL GOTTA WASH YOUR HANDS There’s a pandemic on, muchacho. Don’t be a prick.

THE OL’ TOOTHBRUSH-UP-THE-WAZOO TRICK, EH? Just because you’re no longer using your toothbrush does not mean you can send it to a friend or relative as a gift, then follow up with Polaroids of said toothbrush stuck up your ass. You may also not send anyone a box of donuts followed by snapshots of the donuts hanging from your cock. I’m pretty sure both of those are felonies now.

DOGGY DADDY! At least once an hour–more often if you’re not alone–you must sniff your own pits and let loose a glorious sound proclaiming your own stanky rankness. You may use such phrases as:

• You can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you, Mr. Armpits!
• Smells like victory!
• Gimme the beat, boys, and free my soul!
• But that I could live inside my own funk like a piston in Moloch’s infernal engine!
• I slough off the Underwear of God!
• ROOOOONUS! Come out and PLAAAAAAA-YAY!

And so on.

SHIT OFF THE BALCONY You’ve always wanted to. Do it. Go hang your ass over the railing and set that turd free. Do it, you pussy.

I’m gonna put an end to whatever this is now.

Good call. Was it the “shitting off the balcony” thing?

That was part of it. The whole post is a mess, but nothing good can come from giving out that kind of advice.

Hey, if people listen to me, it’s on them.

SAN SOUCI

Garcia
Most of his wives
Parish
John Kahn
Rock Scully

RUCKA RUCKA RANCH

Mickey
Around a dozen foreigners playing drums
Several horses on acid
The ghost of Bill Graham

TERRAPIN CROSSROADS

Phil
Jill
Graham
The Busboys
Ross James

BOBBY’S A-FRAME

Bobby
His wife, Natasha Monster
Monet and all of her Instagram simps.
Bobby’s long-time stalker, Helvetica Dropfoot.
Matt Busch
Many dogs

BILLY’S MALIBU PLACE

Billy
Benjy Eisen
Justin
Assorted skank
Delivery guy Billy took a shine to and kidnapped

A mask in public? Oh, no. Not for us, thank you. Japan can keep that bullshit. We’ll take their food and movies and gadgets, but they can have “walking down the street in a surgeon’s mask.” It’s rude, and unfriendly. Americans wanna see each others’ mouth-holes, dammit; it’s a lip-based republic.

But the heebie-jeebies have snuck into town, and so now the CDC is recommending that we all wear masks when we leave our iso-chambers. For those confused about the protocols and floating trivialities of public mask-wearing, TotD now offers these tips:

DO NOT WEAR A FULL-HEAD WEREWOLF MASK It will not protect you from the coronavirus, and it will scare children. A full-head werewolf mask also severely limits your peripheral vision, and you need that to maintain your Personal Health Radius

OR A DARTH VADER HELMET Similar reasons to the werewolf mask. Plus, if you wear a Darth Vader helmet to the supermarket, some half-drunk Gen X mom will use an Italian bread like a light saber and start whacking you about the head and shoulders. Everybody’s squirrelly right now; don’t go around agitating people.

OR A JASON MASK Let’s just have a blanket statement: Don’t wear a mask from the Halloween store.

REUSE, RECYCLE A basic surgical mask can be reworn 8.3 times. An N95-type mask can be used twice; upon the third donning, the mask explodes and destroys the wearer’s jaw. (The manufacturers call this feature “enforced planned obsolescence.”)

MASKS ARE PROLE SCHMATAS Somewhere, probably in Brooklyn or Los Angeles, a guy is ordering a mask off the internet. It is red, and has the Supreme logo on it, and costs $400. Fuck that guy.

A TURTLENECK PULLED WAY UP IS NOT A MASK Who are you, Bazooka Joe? Cut the shit.

TONGUE FU You ain’t gettin’ away with nothin’ ‘hind that mask, Johnny Earl. I see that floppy slug slippin’ out. I c’n see it pulsating and probing behind the Confederate bandana you usin’ as a China virus mask. Don’t you waggle that mouth-dick at me!

Heeeeeeey, buddy. Ran out of mask jokes?

Yeah.

And you didn’t wanna just end the post with dignity?

No.

You succeeded.

Yay.

• Three, maybe four bagels.
• Bowl of Lucky Charms.
• Remainder of the Lucky Charms pawed from the box like an animal.
• At least two sleeves of Ritz Crackers.
• One-three slices of pizza. (Somewhere in there.)
• So much rice that a Chinese dude was like, “Bro, that’s too much rice,” and I was like, “You’re in no position to have an opinion on other people’s diets right now, Chinese dude.”
• If those little cups of Jello Pudding are carbs, then they are on this list.
• Half-grown barley yanked from the ground and not even washed.
• Another bagel.

Day-drinking has become sadly maligned in recent years, what with the advent of potable water and the ubiquity of heavy machinery, but for most of human history the practice was not just accepted but recommended. Life was tough! Women would have ten or twelve babies a year, and all of them would be eaten by (non-Exotic) tigers. Men worked at the mill until they died at the age of 35, and then were immediately ground up to make patent medicines. Even teenagers had it rough, as planetariums had not yet been invented, and so there were no Pink Floyd lazer shows to attend.

What to do? Get swozzled at noon!

With the outbreak of the coronavirus, you–the hard-working, God-fearing, toe-shrimping American–has more reason than ever to pick up a bottle at dawn. What are you gonna do: Face this shit sober? I don’t think so. Always remember what Franklin Roosevelt said after Pearl Harbor: The only thing we have to fear is tomorrow’s hangover; now who’s up for some fuckin’ shots? 

However, if you’re just venturing into the wild world of sunshine sloppiness, then there are some vital rules to remember:

MORNINGS ARE FOR MIXED DRINKS Just because you’ll most likely die drowning in your own lungs’ effluvia, that’s no reason to not get your nutrients in. Screwdrivers have orange juice! Bloody Marys have a stalk of celery! Shit, there’s even milk in a White Russian! Take care of your health, Enthusiasts, al least until noon or so when you say Fuck it and start taking pulls of Bacardi 151 straight from the bottle.

IGNORE THE VICTORIANS All our food-and-clothing rules come to us straight from the Victorians, who were the most uptight, snobbish fuckwits that ever stalked, surveyed, conquered, and taxed the planet. Remember that whole “forcing the Chinese to become opium addicts” brouhaha? Is that who you want to emulate? No, of course not, so why would you listen to their proscriptions about booze? White wine doesn’t just go with chicken and fish. White wine goes with life! Red wine isn’t just to be paired with steak, but also parenting or cooking another fucking loaf of sourdough that for some reason you feel the need to share with the world on social media.

STOP IT WITH THE FUCKING SOURDOUGH I’ll cram the next crusty loaf of San Francisco carbohydrates I see up your ass. Fuck off with your bread. You people are a yeast infection.

STILL NOT COOL TO DRIVE Yes, the roads are empty, and yes it would be fun to careen through the middle of town with your load on, taking out mailboxes and stop signs and hucking empties out the window, but no you shouldn’t.

YOUR FREEZER IS YOUR WALLET’S FRIEND If you serve it cold enough, then even the cheapest alcohol tastes good. Box wine at room temp? Blech. Box wine from the fridge? Bravo!

A TIME FOR HEROES Y’know who started taking pops the moment he woke up? Churchill. Y’know who doesn’t drink at all? Trump. Ipso blotto.

TRY NOT TO SHIT YOURSELF I’m not saying don’t shit yourself. You’re gonna shit yourself. I’m just saying that you should try not to.

TAM BO LI DE SAY DE MOI YA Heeeeeyyyy! Jambo, jambo!

BIG FAT LETTERS Little skinny letters.

ALL RIGHT, ENOUGH. You’ve lost interest in the premise and now you’re just pointlessly surreal.

I’m just too worried to think straight.

The corona, huh?

No, I’m worried about what’s going on on the Comfort. That situation is sure to have escalated.

You’re your own biggest fan.

I have no choice but to stan.

You can do it.

You were in jail, if just for a spell. If you’re reading this, you were probably in jail for at least one night. Maybe you even deserved it Toilets were made out of steel instead of porcelain in jail, and you had to share ’em with arsonists and fingerbangers. Or you were in the service. Maybe you believed the recruiter. Stuck in Omaha, or on a boat patrolling the Bering, or a Hummer on the outskirts of Baghdad.

You’ve been somewhere you couldn’t leave before; this is not as bad.

You slept in your own bed last night, and it is assured that you will tonight. Think of the millions over the years denied that glory, to be disconnected from one’s blankets and stink, to lay a frightened head on unfamiliar pillows under unforgiving stars. Not you. The clock is on the side-table with the glass of water, and nine steps to the bathroom, and back to try and sink under before you realize you’re awake. The safest place in the the world, where you are most vulnerable. You have not been chased from your bed, and this is something to be grateful for.

You got electric light. And blenders, and washing machines, and complicated toothbrushes, and oscillating fans. The exact temperature of your dwelling is up to you. Think about that. Homo Sapiens has been around for 200,000 years, and for 199, 950 years of that, the best we could do was “Oh, God, open a window; it’s stifling in here,” and “Somebody throw another log on the fire or I’m gonna fucking die. Not now, though. Not at your house. You got an up-to-code HVAC system, and you can keep your house whatever the fuck temperature you want, just like Jesus intended.

The clean water comes in, and the dirty water goes out. As a rule. You never think about it, except when it explodes–plumbing will explode occasionally–and it is a miracle. There’s no privy outside your digs, and no pump surrounded by bucket-wielding maidens on your street. Kings and sultans didn’t have the access to fresh water and sanitation you take for granted.

Teevee is available, and plentiful, and we are apparently in the Golden Age, or you can watch the same stupid British sitcom for the fifth time. Or the Marx Brothers. The old silent films, or you can goof on that Zack Snyder fellow’s offerings. Operas are being broadcast free of charge, which seems against the spirit of opera, and old ballgames are rerun endlessly on some channel, some channel, some channel. There’s something to watch.

Oh, just read Gravity’s Rainbow already.

There are no militias in the town square, and no one is being raped to death. That happens, sometimes. Everything breaks down and everyone starts getting ideas and you have to raise up your pant cuffs to keep the blood of ’em. There is still order. Anarchists, who are children, mock order because they do not know humanity’s true face. When order breaks down, you don’t wanna be there.

Could be plague. If it was 541, it’d be plague. Or 1351. Killed a third of Europe in 1351. You know what the flu did in 1918, and smallpox and tuberculosis did for the New World in 1421 and thereafter. Could be a lot more contagious; could be a lot more mortal. It could be worse. There is no shame in thanking The Lord for not making things worse.

The load is lighter than it seems, and your feet have so many more miles in them.

We’ll go on, we can’t go on, etc.