Now that I’ve been sheltering in place for what seems like forever, I admit to going a little stir-crazy.  Stir-crazy I suppose, is better than bat-shit-crazy, which describes a certain self proclaimed stable genius and bat-shit-crazy is of course better than eating bats, which is apparently how we got into this mess to begin with.

Except for the stir-crazy part, I’m actually pretty good at this sheltering stuff.   Back when the stable genius was rambling on about how we only had fifteen cases and soon we’d be down to zero, I’d already begun picking up a little bit of extra food here and there.  So when it turned out that his idea of zero differed from the real world, I was on my way to being prepared. And as I write this, zero is now well over 60,000. If the genius wants a true appreciation of zero, he can take a look at my ever dwindling bank account which inches closer to zero every day.  It turns out that sheltering does not pay well.

The key to sheltering, in addition to Netflix, is preparation.  While the stable genius was ranting about democratic hoaxes, I made sure we had enough essentials like food and toilet paper (I’m not sure I’ll ever understand that), cat food, and the most essential thing of all, wine. Overall we’re in no danger of starving and to date  we’ve only raided the stash for the Oreos. Who can resist Oreos when they’re in the house?

Because I’m busy sheltering, I am not busy working. I had two jobs cancel on me, so like a lot of people, I have a fair amount of time on my hands (constant soap and water takes care of everything else). For a while I used some of that time to watch the White House briefings, emceed by the former game show host and afore-mentioned stable genius. The more I watched, the more convinced I became that the Oscar’s might be onto something after all, having gone two years without a host. It seems like the briefings would be a lot more valuable (not to mention watchable) if they could just get the genius to sit this one out.  Unfortunately, the odds of that are about as good as, well, the odds of virus cases going down to zero back in February.

It’s hard to imagine one person giving out such a steady diet of misinformation, dangerous medical advice and downright lies but we don’t have to imagine it. We need only tune in each day to watch the genius alternately praising himself, and berating reporters. In one briefing, the genius, who is likely receiving treatment for injuries suffered while patting himself on back, predictably rated his response to the crisis as a ten. Here in the shelter, we’ve generously assigned him a rating of -436.

In an effort to maintain sanity, I’ve had to stop watching the daily nonsense spewing from the bungler-in-chief. Previous to this decision, I endured a steady diet of things like, “anyone who wants to be tested can be tested and the tests are perfect, just like my call”; Or “no one could have predicted this” when in fact, experts predicted exactly this;  And one of my favorites, “I knew it was a pandemic early on” which seems to contradict, the “no one could have predicted” bit, the “down to zero” lie, the “we have this contained” lie and so on. So far the only true thing the genius has said (possibly the only true thing he has ever uttered) was “I don’t take responsibility.” And he never will.

The briefings go on without me but the idiocy that spews from the orange menace is still unescapable. Whether he’s promoting a drug as FDA approved when it most certainly has not been approved, threatening that states must kiss his orange ass if they want any help (quid pro quo anyone?) or droning on about how wonderful he is, every word is replayed on an endless virus loop on all forms of media.

Because of that, I’m now aware that the clearly unstable genius has announced that he thinks there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  In his addled mind, he’d like everyone back to work by Easter. Never mind that we haven’t even peaked here yet. The game show host is anxious to get us all back to work even if it kills us.  In two weeks, when the hospitals are overrun and a return to normalcy is obviously out of the question, he’ll deny ever having said it. Maybe by then, they’ll either stop airing him live or perhaps find a new host. Alex Trebek anyone?  As for me, it looks like I’ll be sheltering for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, there is more wine to drink and Oreos to eat (although not together!).