What--Me Worry?

I loved Mad magazine when I was a kid--and even beyond. Early in my teaching career, I sometimes took copies to class to help illustrate irony and satire. (Would you be surprised to learn my parents were not fans of the magazine?)

And, of course, Alfred E Neuman (pictured above) and his famous question: "What--me worry?"

Lots of us are worrying now about COVID-19--I know I am. Trying not to. But worrying nevertheless.

Joyce and I are being cautious--we wash hands, have sanitizers around, we're avoiding the movies, and the Great Lakes Theater Festival just notified us that they're canceling their March-April production, Much Ado About Nothing (which I was really looking forward to: I taught the play for the last four or five years of my public-school teaching career).

We're careful about when we go to the store. We are not hoarding--although we've always been a bit ... fussy? ... about having extras around: soap, paper towels, toilet paper (!), etc. So we're in pretty good shape, I guess. Now we go to the store just to get perishables (fruit, veggies, yogurt, milk, etc.) And I know we are lucky to have the lives we do--very lucky.

Joyce has stopped going to the gym--something I have had to do anyway in recent weeks because of the ******* dizziness that my physicians are trying to figure out. She used to go six mornings a week. But now ...? Being safe. Prudent. And prudence, recall, is one of the four classical virtues, the others being justice, temperance, and courage. I think we probably need all of those these gloomy days.

I still go to the coffee shop each day--but am careful about proximity to people. Yesterday, a friend I regularly see there (he comes in, talks with me a bit, gets coffee, leaves) came over to my table to chat--but stayed about six feet away from me. Prudent. I was grateful.

I always wash/sterilize my hands when I get home.

Of course, Joyce and I are in the "danger" demographic--i.e., in the upper decades of our lives. I've gotten annoyed a couple of times when I've read/watched younger newspaper and TV commentators say things like, "Don't worry too much--it's mostly the elderly who are going to die from it."

That's a comfort. And so empathetic.

Joyce is trying to use her bank card instead of cash whenever she can. I'm doing that, too. But even at the grocery store at the self-checkout, we have to touch the screen. I try to use a knuckle--doesn't always work. Wash and sanitize when we get home.

For entertainment? We've got many unread books around; we stream things; Joyce is at the copy-editing stage of her forthcoming book about John Brown; I am writing doggerel and this blog and trying to work my way through the first very rough draft of vol. 3 of The Papers of Victoria Frankenstein, YA novels about a middle school girl who is a direct descendant of Victor F. (The 1st two volumes are available on Kindle Direct--and appear, in early forms, in previous years on this blog.)

Best of all--we have each other. And there's no one on earth with whom I'd rather be quarantined!

And so it goes for who-knows-how-long. There are very few cases in Ohio right now, so if/when the wider spread comes, it will be down the road a bit, and we will have to make additional adjustments. Perhaps not even leave the house at all.

Which, as I said, is no real punishment at all—not for me.

But our hearts go out to those whose incomes and livelihoods depend upon their leaving home. We are doing some small things to help some who are in our lives, but modesty keeps me from saying more. But I urge everyone who is able to do everything they can for those less fortunate.