The Great Toilet Paper Run During the Pandemic of 2020

There isn't any! The man is running down the aisle with that look. You know the Covid19 look of panic. The virus could be in the next aisle or in the next checkout line. It is nine AM but he and I have just found out we are too late. The Great Toilet Paper Run of the 2020 pandemic is on. What is it about toilet paper that people feel they must have. The food aisles are full, meat is in abundance, water is flowing. Cleaning products are still to be found. But toilet paper is a great vast space on the shelves next to the paper towels.

It is a primal need. One must have toilet paper. Apparently the colonists settled for corncobs when nothing else was available. The famous Sears Roebuck catalogs of the nineteenth and early twentieth century was to to be found in many outhouses all over America. Just tear a page out and you were set. Before that maybe people didn't use anything. During times of plague maybe it just wasn't a concern. But now we have people who are buying mass quantities. Some are suspected of entering the toilet paper black market with their purchases and getting top dollar for people to have the privilege of being able to still have their necessities.

But I have been given my charge. Do not come back without toilet paper. The man who declared we were too late is frantically going up and down the aisle and is now staring at the last rolls of paper towels. That is a rough alternative but necessity is the mother of invention. I turn around and see a large brown box in the aisle. Some stocking employee had left it there and inside I see an eight roll pack. I grab it and run for the checkout, passing the man who had just settled on the last roll of paper towels. I found the last one, I shout. He stares at me and shakes his head...SHIT!

Exactly.



William Hazelgrove

Giving Speeches During the 2020 Pandemic

No handshaking. Easier than it sounds. Keep your hands clasped behind your back. Sometimes people still come on and there is the hand. Sorry. I cant. Oh. The hand retracts. Spray down the podium. The microphone. You never know. Keep your distance as you work the crowd. Go and wash your hands several times before you go on. Then you are behind your podium. Your barrier. From here on it is a cakewalk as the audience is in the dark and you are up by the screen.

Some questions. And then the lights come up. Some people want to talk. Keep your hands clasped behind your back. You take a few steps back and most people respect the distance. But then comes the woman who has to tell you about her family history. And she does not know the meaning of personal space. She comes on. Did I tell you about my family? No. You take a few steps back and she takes a few forward. So they came over in 1665... Uh huh. She comes closer. You take another step back.

Now you are backed into the wall and still she comes on. So I researched and what I found....Now she has you. You have no where to go as your back hits the wall. You are within the three feet the CDC says to avoid. She is coming in for the kill. You pivot and take refuge behind the book table. It has become your moat. Well thank you for coming you say, grabbing your hand sanitizer. It doesn't matter. If she has the virus you probably have it by now. 

Ebola and those little tombstones

Out by me way out in the cornfields is a cemetery. It is one of those country cemeteries you drive by and think what is that doing out here in the middle of nowhere? But of course there used to be farm towns and this where they went with their dead. And if you go to the cemetery you will see many old tombstones from the nineteenth century and many from the early part of the twentieth century. And then  you will see very small tombstones.

And the dates on these stones are 1915, 1916, 1917. And they were all children. Many dying before they were ten and you realize in that silent cemetery that these are from the last epidemic. The Spanish Flu or Influenza epidemic that killed millions in the early years of the last century. And of course many of the victims were children. And like Ebola the Spanish Flu inspired terror and people were quarantined and the army was brought in.

And there was a point where the Surgeon General said he didn't know what to do. He said he thought society might unravel because people would not congregate and cities were beginning to cease to function. Then the epidemic receded. Not because of anything we did but it had killed all the people it  could and those left had immunity. We have lived in the shadow of Influenza returning ever since.

And with Ebola it is the long shadow of those tiny headstones that strikes fear in the human soul. The question was always not if the Spanish Flu would return, but when. Ebola hits all the chords.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
 

The Influenza Dance

It happens once a year. You get a flu shot take vitamins get plenty of rest and still she comes for that dance. You would think such a person would get the hint. But that first sniffle, then that first strange sneeze. You really don't believe such a creature could come with just a cold. A puff of air presaging a black storm. But then you cough. Just a little puff if you will. Now Enza is waiting in the wings for her turn and you do not want to take up this dance. But she is not patient and you hack up that first dark green globule of mucus in the morning that announces her arrival.

Now you do not want to dance and Enza is getting mad. So you go to the doctor and get some Tamiflu . She is really annoyed and now you are coughing so hard in bed you wake yourself up. You are literally jumping off your pillow. You cannot sleep. You cannot breathe. You hack out thick green globules of Enzas wrath. She is all dressed in black and you are making her wait. And so you go back to the doctor and gasp that the Tamiflu did not work. Bring in the Zithromax.

Enza is now in full regalia. A flowing black Victorian number and she is mad as hell. She lets loose with everything she has. Your heat throbs. Your appetite is gone. You are losing weight. You are hacking so hard your chest hurts. You feel like you are drowning. Still you hold off. I will not dance. I will not do this and she lets fly and you start vomiting and cant get off the toilet and you simply want to die. Ok. Ok. I will dance with you, you gasp out.

So you take her in your arms and she smiles and sends cold death shivers through you. You waltz around the room past all those small graves of all those children she took in the epidemic of 1915. You have seen the small graves and she is gliding lightly in your arms and smiling.  You shake your head and gasp... not me. Not now And she smiles and touches you lightly on your nose. Silly boy. Not this year my dear....not yet.

And she leaves you like that. Gone. Her fury abated for another year. A black willowing spirit fading into the winter night. You collapse into the bed. And slowly, slowly, you get better. You swear you will never return to this Godforsaken place and never dance with Enza again. Until next year... when she comes in the black of winter and demands her dance.

www.billhazelgrove.com