Strange Days, With More Still to Come

I should have known, when I decided I actually wanted to do some traveling this year, see some places I'd never been, that things were going to end badly. Jokes aside, I'm still very much at the point where I'm more concerned for people I know than I am for myself.

My parents are both above the age when the mortality rate goes up significantly. Fortunately, they're both pretty good at entertaining themselves, and neither is the sort to go rushing into town for minor things. My mom lives in an urban area, while my dad is out in the boonies, but my dad has three dogs of advanced age, so he's actually more likely to be around lots of people, if only because of vet visits.

I think all the bars and nightclubs in the state have been ordered shuttered for the next 6-10 weeks, which is not good for Alex, seeing as he's a DJ. His livelihood is kind of dependent on playing music for large gatherings of people. He seems both more worried than me and not as worried. More worried in that he's glad he's bought a lot of freeze-dried food over the last few years. Less worried in that he's looking ahead to all the gigs at the Lake of the Ozarks he's scheduled for this summer as his chance to recover financially.

I have pointedly not raised the question of what happens if this thing persists and people aren't allowed to congregate at the lake this summer. I'm pretty sure he's already aware of the possibility, and he'll figure it out if he has to. I'll help if he needs it. While a couple of $1,000 checks from the government won't hurt him, that's not going to cut it if this things drags on through the summer. One of the guys he works for a lot already announced he would have to permanently close one of his clubs, because he can't afford to pay the bills for two months if it's shut down. Not sure those checks will change that, either. And that's if that alleged solution comes to pass. I will believe it when I see it. Even then, it would be smart to make certain signing the check doesn't give Mitch McConnell the right to harvest your organs and either sell them or use them to prolong his own hideous existence.

(And get the fuck out of here with Schumer and his nonsense about "giving" small business owners low-interest loans. A loan is not giving someone anything except a future debt.)

As for me, I work for the state government, which has not, as yet, shut down entirely. Although they found one state worker in one of the other buildings who tested positive yesterday, so who knows at this stage. I kind of assume it's already around, and maybe I've come into contact and maybe I haven't. I haven't noticed anything definitive yet.

They've only in the last week started taking any steps, which has been the most frustrating part for me, because they can't seem to make up their minds. They issue one set of instructions Friday, a different or revised set Monday morning. They ask for each group to come up with some sort of plan to minimize how many people are in the office, then change what they want in the afternoon, and again on Tuesday, adding conditions and stipulations all the while. Nothing like giving the impression of scrambling around with their heads either cut off or up their asses.

My boss has accumulated a ridiculous amount of sick leave over his 20+ years, and asked if he could simply use some of it - maybe 3% - to self-quarantine for two weeks, without having a note from his physician stating he was ill. He was told no, which seems idiotic to me. They want us to work from home at least a couple of days a week in a rotation, so there aren't as many people in the building. OK, just let people take their damn sick leave and they won't be in the building.

(I'm not clear on why we can't do that anyway. It's my goddamn sick leave. You can either pay for me to take a day off with it now, or you can pay when I leave the job or retire. Take your pick.)

We were also told yesterday that on the days we're working from home, we better be there, because the Division Director (my boss' boss' boss) may call to check in that we're at our computer and not say, mowing the lawn.

I really hope that isn't the case, because just knowing they made a dumb threat like that, makes me want to sarcastically ask him if he doesn't have more important shit to do than play truant officer if he calls me.

Beyond that, I don't know. My coworkers keep telling me about how barren everything is at Wal-Mart. That people are practically ambushing the workers as they push out pallets with paper towels on them. Alex told me people are buying up ammunition like crazy (including him, no doubt). Swell, they'll execute the virus by firing squad. My dad went to buy bird seed somewhere, and they were out because some crazy bastard bought an entire pallet of bird seed. I assume he plans to trap songbirds as an emergency food supply. Either that, or he wants to make certain he has enough sunflower seeds. One coworker keeps going on about her doomsday shelter when she isn't spraying everything in sight with Lysol. She did that for a solid week before she read the can and found out you have to not touch what you spray for 10 minutes afterwards, or it doesn't do any good.

I haven't been in a grocery store since Sunday, so maybe things have changed. That one seemed to have plenty of stuff on the shelves, at least of things I buy. The meat section took a hit, but it wasn't entirely barren at 4 in the afternoon. I had to buy some toilet paper and a couple of other things last Friday, because I was down to one spare roll. The Dollar General (where most things are not $1) was down to two packages left, a 12-roll and a 72-roll. I grabbed the 12, then felt really bad as I walked away and someone shouted, "You're out of toilet paper!". They actually weren't, because someone had brought more out from the back as I walked up, the shouter just wasn't paying attention. When the guy at the register commented everyone was buying toilet paper, I wanted to explain I wasn't hoarding, I really was almost out.

A different coworker insists I should have grabbed the 72-pack. I'm not even sure where I could store 72 rolls in my apartment, and if I'm in a situation where I need that much because I can't get more, I probably have bigger problems. Civilization has likely collapsed, indoor plumbing's gone.

But I don't go out socializing much, anyway, so everything being closed down is not a massive hit to my social life. Most of the times I go places with lots of people, it's because I'm tagging along with Alex to one of his gigs. I learned a lot about keeping myself entertained from my parents. I can still get out and run, bike, or walk as I see fit, since I do those things solo. If I end up well and truly stuck inside my apartment 24/7, that might drive me nuts.

I'm kind of waiting and watching right now. The "work at home sometimes" thing is only until April 5th at the moment. Maybe (probably) it'll be extended. I'm hoping people will calm down on all the panic hoarding, but I'm not confident of it. Probably depends on if the government ever gets enough test kits out to get a proper sense of how many people are sick or infected, and what that tells us about the situation.