By Kenneth Cooper

If your house is dirty, people won’t eat your potato salad, but they will try your crawfish. Your crawfish tends to be a direct reflection of your personality though. It can be bland, spicy, plain ole nasty, or complex. People tend not to tell you when there’s a problem with your crawfish. They just don’t show up when you call and say you’re boiling. What’s worse, being judged on your cleanliness or your character?

I can tell when my wife finds toilet paper these days, because she comes home happy. It’s been weeks since I saw toilet paper on the shelves. At one point, the Sewerage & Water Board said pipes were clogging because people were turning to paper towels and baby wipes as alternatives. Other animals don’t seem to have these problems. Dogs, cats, chickens, birds, they just seem to do their business then go about unbothered. Instead of researching their secrets, we stalk stores. As a child, one of the most debilitating things that could happen to your reputation was to be known to have a stinky booty. There was just no coming back from it. We the only species on the planet that takes wiping themselves so seriously.

A month ago, the Coronavirus was something happening on TV. Nowadays, if you don’t know somebody who has it, you know somebody who knows somebody. Last week, a man sneezed in line at the grocery store and it felt like everybody stopped what they were doing and stared at him. For a nano second there was silence. Cashiers just stood there, mouths open, holding items over the scanner. I expected the manager to come out and instantly behead him.

The Coronavirus enters the body through the eyes, mouth, or nose. It doesn’t knock or ask permission. Once in the body, it latches onto a healthy cell, holds it in place, and penetrates it. It then injects a protein that allows the virus to duplicate itself in the cell. That is rape on a molecular level. The body’s natural reaction is to abort the impregnation. Immune cells are summoned, and a battle ensues, as proteins and antibodies are released to fight the virus. The encounter is cataclysmic, a lot of microscopic rumbling and tumbling. Externally, your body registers the excitement as a fever.

Word of the day – “QUIXOTIC”

While the death toll was spiking and the country was becoming the leader in confirmed Coronavirus cases, the president was running around talking about, wouldn’t it be great if we all got together and packed the churches for Easter. Merriam-Webster’s word of the day is quixotic, an adjective that means foolishly impractical, especially in the pursuit of ideals. Somebody should share it with the president.

Yesterday, a headline appeared on my news feed. It read: Texas Lt. Governor suggests elderly should die to save the economy from the Coronavirus. As the Texas Lt. Governor elaborated throughout the article, it became clear that this was an accurate headline. Texas’ Lt. Governor’s name is Dan Patrick. What a guy. Maybe he should lead by example. If he sacrifices himself now, he can resurrect come Easter.  He too needs to learn our word of the day.

Suddenly rats are roaming Bourbon street at night, starving, looking for food. With their adapted habitats shut down and food supply moved to storage, they’ve become another desperate portion of the population. The city has responded to this disenfranchised mass by increasing traps on the street and throwing more bait into the catch basins. By design, the traps are simple and apparent, but the bait is much more interesting and effective. Once eaten, one of its first effects is to zap the rat of energy, leaving it tired and lazy, unmotivated to move. A toxin is then released that causes a rise in stomach acid. The rat registers this as gas. Calcium levels then spike in the bloodstream. Organ failure, then death ensues. It’s devastating. The importation of this foreign substance into the rat community has destroyed generations and wreaked havoc, sort of like crack did to poor communities of color.  

Will this Mardi Gras be known as the one where we all got together and gave each other the Coronavirus?

When the sun ducked behind the clouds Saturday, it was a nice day out. Spring has always been a transitional season, warm winds blowing in, preparing the planet for Summer. The whole world seems to be in transition now, waiting to see what news of the virus will blow in next. But even though you may be jobless, broke, or just cooped up with slower than usual internet, always know it could be worse.

Every zombie apocalypse starts with one virus or another. All it takes is for one viral strand to break the wrong way and we could be dealing with a different type of social distancing. But hey, maybe then we won’t be so concerned about wiping ourselves.