If Snowflakes were Horses, my Neighbor Would Ride

The first day of lockdown is in progress. As your reporter on the scene, I ventured out to survey the misery. And to get sushi, which is clearly vital to my survival.

Here is my report: I can’t tell the difference.

Stores are bustling. There is plenty of traffic, by this area’s standards. Chick fil-A is open. I’m still not sure who or what, exactly, is locked down.

I’ll bet my barber didn’t close. But I don’t need a haircut, so I won’t know for a while.

I guess “lockdown” means different things to people in different areas, and it’s probably a lot worse if you have a 9-to-5 job or kids. Or if you live in a leftist-dominated police state.

I coped with the anguish and fear by completing a second stand for steel targets. I am beside myself with satisfaction. Here’s a photo:

It’s simpler than the other stand, so putting it together was faster. It will hold my weight in the middle. It should be excellent.

It’s on the low side. I do that on purpose, to make it harder to shoot over the berm and kill my neighbors. If it turns out to be too low, making adjustable extensions for the side supports will take about 90 minutes.

I blasted it with truck bed coating. I’ll need another can tomorrow. Luckily, car parts stores are essential.

Tomorrow, the gongs should get here. Federal Express is essential! Then I’ll be able to shoot at TWO target arrays at once.

I’m thrilled with this thing.

I’m also going to slap my bottle stands together. That should take half an hour.

Things are getting better at stores, although judging from some bulging carts I saw today, the relatively toothless lockdown order is scaring people who don’t think very carefully.

Flour is coming back. I bought eggs. Hadn’t seen those in a while. The cashier told me the store had toilet paper until noon every day. That’s how long it takes for the selfish to show up and remove it.

I ask cashiers about toilet paper purely for entertainment, and it upsets them. Not my intention. They are not happy with the hoarders. They have to watch them waddle past their registers all day.

I have to wonder how Miami is doing. Cubans have an incredibly selfish me-first culture. I’ll bet there has been violence in grocery stores. There are probably hoarder-stocked new businesses all over Hialeah now, under the table. During the Andrew mess, gouging was everywhere. We are the world! We are the children! Hold hands, everyone!

Don’t give me a hard time for my assessment of Miami culture. I lived there. I’ve seen how people behave. I’ve seen how they fish. In Miami, anyone who obeys the fishing laws is considered a fool, and Miami boats clean out the reefs in the Bahamas. I’ve seen how people cut in lines. I’ve seen how they treat other drivers. I’ve seen their attitude toward fair taxes and reasonable environmental laws. I’m not making anything up.

I was going to get chicken today and make doro wat, which is a spicy Ethiopian stew, but apparently someone hoarded the chicken at the store I visited today. It only takes a few immature customers with freezers to ruin things for everyone for an entire day. The Winn-Dixie near me hasn’t been having chicken problems. Maybe I’ll run over there. It’s essential.

I had a minor problem. I wanted liquid chlorine for my pool. It needs a shock to get the swimming season started. Of course, hoarders have been taking the chlorine. I can’t figure out what they’re doing with 10% pool chlorine. It’s brutal. Bleach is not that hard to find. Hoarding pool chlorine is not necessary. Besides, bleach is not the best thing for coronavirus. You need alcohol, which can be found in hardware stores and possibly liquor stores. Everclear ought to work.

I had to buy powdered shock treatment, but it worked out fine. I wanted to avoid the kind that has calcium in it, because it leaves a residue in the pool. The brand I bought contains sodium.

My cousin in the Chicago area says people there are whispering that the government is going to shut stores down for two weeks. I marveled when she told me. How can anyone be that gullible? Imagine the riots. “Sorry, everyone. Just fast until the 28th. If you feel you’re going to die, make sure you unlock your front door for the collection people.” That’s not going to happen.

They can’t starve us, but they’re doing an awful lot to us. It turns out the Constitution tears much more easily than I thought. It’s a very thin document, especially after years of being abraded by statists.

Today I was thinking it would be funny if I got coronavirus, after telling people the truth about the overblowing of the epidemic. If I got sick, people would say it proved I was wrong. Of course, it would not. One robin doesn’t make a spring. But people aren’t logical. They would not understand. They would be sure it proved I was mistaken about everything.

Being right is frustrating when you swim in a sea of people who are wrong. I feel like God gave me a simple cure for cancer and then cursed me with a language no one else can understand.

About 1/2000 of America is believed to have the disease, so there is no medical reason why I couldn’t get it. I would just have to beat great odds. Like when I got pink eye in spite of being a hermit.

If you get a mild case, you will probably feel relieved, because it will put an end to the anticipation. You’ll know you’re not going to die.

I would not be beside myself if I got a typical case. I would be pretty bummed out if I got the other kind, however. The relatively rare kind. But then I would also be bummed out if I got a severe case of the flu, which is many times more likely.

This disease obviously spreads much more slowly than the flu. This is proven. It did so even when no one was locked down or socially distancing. Also, there is evidence that warm weather will get rid of it. Still, I do wonder what will happen. I’m not sure how a disease that spreads slowly to begin with can infect a large percentage of people when everyone is struggling to avoid it. Maybe it can, but unless the Chinese are doing a phenomenal job of keeping a secret, it’s not happening in the birthplace of coronavirus, so it would appear that it won’t happen anywhere.

I feel some reluctance to go out and shoot the gongs. The gunfire that is usually so common in my neighborhood has been silent lately. My guess is that people are afraid to expend precious ammo. When they hear me out there banging away, it may seem to be in poor taste. It may seem like showing off or irresponsibility.

Ammo is not in short supply, however, except locally. It still rolls out of factories and into stores. If you shop online, as you should be doing anyway, you can find it. There is no reason to be shy about using it. That may change if whichever Bolshevik the Democrats nominate starts to do well in polls.

I’m going to shoot. People who don’t like it will just have to man up and bear it. I don’t think there’s anyone like that here, though, except maybe for the strange lady who thinks no one should be allowed to shoot within a mile of her inbred, untrained horses. I shoot all I want, and I count on her and her horses to find coping strategies. Things will work out fine if we all do our jobs. My job is to blast steel gongs with various types of bullets.

You can’t start making concessions when spoiled neighbors with boundary issues make crazy demands. If I let her prevent me from shooting, next she’d be texting me to tell me to turn the TV down or to watch a different channel. “I thought we agreed you were going to watch Oprah.”

I like to think it does her good when I go out and pop off a hundred or so rounds. It will toughen her up, and maybe it will make men out of her horses.

I’m enjoying using my tools. Sometimes I find myself putting off working on a project, and as I have probably said before, I tell myself, “If you don’t want to use your tools, sell them.” Then I get started, and I have a great time.

Life is better when you end the day with bits of torn steel in your hair. It’s like cruising home from fishing with fish blood all over you. It shows you did something with your day.

Of course I will post photos of the stand when the gongs are attached.