Goodbye, Pandemic; Hello, Needless Recession

The coronavirus news gets better and better, at least as far as the disease itself is concerned. The oppression and totally unnecessary economic destruction are different matters.

The Johns Hopkins site that graphs new cases as they appear shows that the American infection rate is down near the point where it was two weeks ago. That means transmission is decelerating. The epidemic is going away, and it’s happening fast. Some time in May, we should be walking around outdoors again, and toilet paper will be on sale everywhere. We will be using it for landfill.

I can’t imagine what it’s like to be without toilet paper for weeks. I’m so grateful. My own supply seems to grow. I had plenty before the lunacy started, and I keep discovering new rolls. Found one in a closet yesterday.

Amazon has had a run on bidet attachments for toilets. Maybe coronavirus will drive Americans to catch up with France and start cleaning their rear ends properly.

When I’m in stores, I force myself to walk by paper towels. It’s actually exciting to see them. I feel drawn to them. But I have all I need, and as long as I’m willing to shop before noon, I can always get more. If I pass them by, people with big families may get a shot.

I don’t want to pick on people, but I’ve seen some desperate, uninformed behavior here. I’ve seen a lot of masks. The only kind of mask that is known to protect people from coronavirus is an N95 or N100 mask. I don’t know much about it, but they’re for people in unusual situations. I read about these masks yesterday. A doctor said they were very uncomfortable and that it’s hard to wear one for more than half an hour or so. You have to push the air in and out, and that wears you out. You also have to fit them properly, which most people would not do even if they had them. And you can’t keep the same one forever. They get contaminated. They’re disposable. Health care workers just came up with an approved way to clean them, and that was out of desperation.

Even good masks don’t catch all the bugs, even if you fit them correctly. That’s interesting. They may catch a significant percentage.

I hate to cite experts, who have been wrong about all the big things, but they say you shouldn’t wear a mask. They don’t think it helps. I guess it will help you not to put virus-laden fingers in your nose and mouth, but were you planning to do that?

When I go out, I see people in bandanas and Home Depot dust respirators, often loosely fitted. They’re not being used like protective gear. They’re being used like charms. “If I wear this, the disease will stay away. And I will win the Florida lottery.”

I’m still waiting to see someone who has poked a hole in a mask for cigarettes. I guarantee you, that person is out there.

People are wearing gloves. How is that supposed to help? You can’t get the virus through your hands. If it gets on a glove, it’s just as easy to transfer to your face as it would be if it were on your bare hand.

Here’s my hat tip to neurosis: I keep a bottle of alcohol in the car. I pour it in my hand when I leave a store, and I rub it over both hands. Then I let it dry. Does it actually do anything? How would I know? If the official numbers are right, I’ve probably never seen a person with coronavirus, let alone been near one. Even if they’re off by a factor of 100, I haven’t been exposed much. But it feels nice to make the effort, and the flu and colds, which are bigger threats, are out there.

I should have been using sanitizer a long time ago, and I was, but I found that it pours out of the bottle when you leave it in a hot car. I never fixed that problem. I gave up.

I wonder what people think when they see me with the car door open, pouring precious alcohol on my hand. Maybe I should draw my gun before I do it. Couple of warning shots might be smart.

I’ve actually considered buying real quinine, which is available on Ebay. How could it hurt? But I suppose if I had the extreme misfortune to develop a serious case of COVID-19, doctors would come up with better treatments than I would. It’s just possible.

What’s going to happen when the total number of active cases drops down near zero? Will our keepers determine that hot weather really does kill coronavirus infections, giving themselves heartburn, because Donald Trump guessed it first? Maybe they’ll tell us to stay indoors because our crazy lockdowns are really what did the trick. It’s important for the powers that be to keep confirming that their bad choices were correct.

China isn’t the only place where saving face leads to doubling down on terrible decisions. Hello…Biden nomination.

No, he’s great. Democrats should rally behind him. Wonderful choice. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

I guess it’s fitting that the Democrats are nominating a man with an underlying condition.

Here’s a prediction: when all is said and done, IF we get a reliable test and IF it’s applied retroactively to samples from people who have died (as it should be), we will find out that many died from something other than COVID-19. I may be wrong. It may be easier to diagnose a fatality than someone who gets well, so maybe coronavirus fatalities have been identified with more certainty. If we test people who got well, I think the overwhelming likelihood is that a lot of coronavirus cases will become flu cases. After all, the Chinese say current tests have a 40-80% false-positive rate.

It will be great when the vaccine becomes available. They used to tell us it would be 18 months. Now one company is shooting for a 2020 release. That would pretty much kill next year’s epidemic, if one begins.

I think I’ll be good this time around. I’ll get the flu shot this year, and when the coronavirus shot becomes available, I’ll get it, too, unless all the doses have been reserved for celebrities.

STILL NO MAJOR CELEBRITY DEATHS. Incredible. Are the Illuminati giving them enchanted gluten-free suppositories?

In lighter news, I used my new, bigger propane cooker last night. I splurged on a choice rib eye instead of the selects they sell at Winn-Dixie for hamburger prices. Splurging was a mistake. It wasn’t any better. The center was just as tough. On the up side, the cap was tender, and the flavor was magnificent. There is nothing like high-temperature butter-frying for steak.

I had to use long tongs because you can’t really get that close to the cooker when it’s working. It will take the hairs right off your hands. I think that means I should use a bigger skillet which will cover more of the flames. Now that I have a proper cooker, I can use a griddle if I want. I can cook for two, in the unlikely event I have a guest.

The butter in the skillet caught fire while I was cooking. That warmed my heart. It told me things were working out.

The rib eye is THE steak. All others are inferior. Unfortunately, Winn-Dixie has been pushing T-bones lately. It’s not a good steak. Sorry, but it’s true.

Filets are good. New York strips are acceptable. A T-bone or porterhouse, which is a filet and strip attached to a bone, is a bad steak for frying. The meat shrinks, the bone doesn’t, and the bone ends up interfering with the pan-to-steak contact. This means no crust. Even if you cook a T-bone by some other means, you still have a very good cut on one side and a lesser cut on the other.

New York strips are wildly overrated. They’re dry and relatively tough. A good one is okay, but it can never compare to a better cut, and bad ones are common.

I’d rather have a good skirt steak than a T-bone or strip.

If the recession goes as expected, good beef will be cheap. I think I paid $7 per pound for prime boneless rib eye during the real estate recession. That was at Costco. I had to buy entire roasts.

Let’s check my Ebay bench grinder poverty index. Yesterday, the search “Baldor bench grinder” came up with 42 used items. Today the total is 44. If my theory is right, the number will increase. Men will be exchanging their tools for signs to hold up beside highways.

But it was worth it. To fight an epidemic which is roughly as deadly as the flu.

It will be interesting to see how the index pans out. Sad, but still interesting.