She hadn’t thought The End would be like this. Nope. She, Sarah Biven, had pictured earthquakes, fires, tornadoes, tsunamis. Families would live in trees. People would fight wars.
Degradation of society proved, instead, to not be instantaneous.
It started with peanut butter.
It did! Sarah could not find her favorite, then could not find any. Funny, she thought, that The End meant no peanut butter. Then, it meant no grapes, no bananas, no meats, no paper goods at all. People rushed to install bidets …till the water ran out as well.
If only -she reflected- they’d not run out of peanuts and meat, she’d at least have had those wars. And what would they fight over? Toilet paper. Some things matter more than others …in The End.
These current COVID times are odd. We live as if the disease does not exist, with constant reminders that it does.
During the worldwide shutdown, you see, our family shuttered into itself; not eating out, not going out, not accepting human interaction or even packages. Our norm is to eat homemade most of the the time but I felt too scared of the risk to try any food prepared in a restaurant.
Contrast to now: we get takeout at least once a week, go out for shopping or school, and visit family and friends and receive them. I no longer make the kids wait a whole day before opening boxes we’ve received. Our new norm is whatever we need based on energy level and access to the kitchen from unpacking/organizing.
I see friends and relatives going on vacations, attending school dances, and watching sports from a crowded stadium.
A football game at the University of Utah stadium.
I feel like everyone thinks and acts like we’re all normal. Then… every time I have an OB/GYN appointment, I must mask, sanitize, and declare my cleanliness from COVID at check-in. Many businesses require their employees to wear a mask; many politely demand or request the same from clientele. My Twofacebook feed hosts shaming and statistics messages against unvaccinated folks OR staunch personal freedom and risk messages in favor of never complying with vaccine regulations.
Unfortunately, I also see occasional posts about this person who has passed away or that person who is struggling in the hospital and could use prayers. Fortunately, I have yet to experience a close family member’s being sick with COVID.
I have had one coworker test positive. She was vaccinated. She described her experience as, “having a bad cold that went on and on;” she’d also lost her sense of taste and smell.
The biggest side effect of Sir ‘Rona is in this U.S. nation’s response and subsequent inflation and shortages.
Necessities like lumber and cement are quite expensive and often rationed out to contractors. McDonald’s was out of root beer for our Happy Meals last week. KFC said they were out of breasts. Shoppers keep exhausting our local Costco stores of toilet paper (again!!) and bottled water. When I applied to our mobile windshield repairman for a replacement, he said he couldn’t get a windshield for our minivan. When I applied to the body shop for a small repair on our pickup truck, they said we could come in mid-December.
Everywhere has Now Hiring signs for entry-level positions. I’ve read articles about supply ships gathered at ports without workers to unload or with strict regulations for the crews. No one seems to want these low-paying jobs, including positions like bus driver or trucker. Point fingers where you may, but current government ‘support’ seems to be contributing; in the words of Percy Blakeney of The Scarlet Pimpernel, “Sink me; if everyone isn’t so equal in your new society that no one wants to do the driving anymore.”
I’m grateful we have more on our side to combat this respiratory infection. I wonder when we’ll consider it finally absolved. After all, they’ve only just approved a childhood vaccine for malaria….
I haven’t felt like writing. My busy blog-posting indicates otherwise, except that I’ve mostly written about Real Life. The world of fiction is not a place I want to go now that it’s knocking on my door and popping into my e-mails and being re-posted on my social media.
Dystopia is one of my favorite subjects. I intend to write a science fiction and/or futuristic novel someday. Maybe I’ll do Skinwalkers or Since the Bombs Fell or “Open the Sky“… But, like I said, that future is here. It’s not so intriguing when I’m living it.
I think I assumed I’d not be alive during a post-apocalyptic scenario.
I definitely assumed I’d be fit, well-armed, well-stocked, and driving an army Jeep.
It’s not quite as awesome to be wearing pajamas, carrying around postpartum baby weight, caring for five children, and occasionally driving a minivan.
The day-to-day sitting around involved with Coronavirus is precisely why they never showed Jack Bauer using the bathroom in his 24 hour days.
Maybe if TP was in short supply in one of the episodes, they would have included a bathroom scene.
I do better in the midst of chaos; needing to grab that last Clorox wipe, save the child from uncertain school days, or stumble to the wall while the world shakes. When all is calm and all is bright, I stay awake as anxiety gnaws at my conscience. What if we get sick? Will the boys ever have school again? What, exactly, do we do in a stronger earthquake?
My husband says worrying does nothing. I say it’s all I can do. If I don’t remember to worry about it, then I am doing nothing. He then says something about the Serenity Prayer…
Which helps me realize that waiting may be difficult, but it may be what we all need to do right now. Realizing this helps me realize I need a plan besides buy, worry, panic. Realizing all of those things helps me realize I ought to accept the things I cannot change and write up a schedule for life and blogging.
It may be infrequent, but I’d like to include the following:
Interviews with my friends, especially those who have published and wish to share their work(s).
Book reviews of the books I will get myself to read, especially if I manage to read the work(s) my friends have published.
More poetry.
More fiction.
Bad poetry, of course. I think we need it.
Some creative projects outside of writing. I art on occasion. I could share more.
Favorite books, music, art, people, whatever.
I never have time for me when the children are home all day, so my chance of daily posts is not very high unless I schedule ahead. Still, I need this outlet. Twofacebook may have a lot more people on it now, but it’s mostly chainmails and reposts. No one likes my informational statistics on COVID for some reason…
If you have ideas of other things I could include on the blog, let me know. If you would like to be interviewed, let me know. As always, thank you for joining me on…
Well, thank you for joining me on my blog, anyway.
—————-
Here’s the past week: Wednesday, March 25: “Going Postal, II,” the second in my serial story about Ron the postman.
Friday, March 27: Wrote an update on the Coronavirus situation ’round here.
Either we’re all feeling especially creative, or we’re all stuck inside our toilet paper forts with too much time on our hands. Not that I’m complaining, but this week’s judging took longer than usual because I received so many entries!
Which doesn’t mean there isn’t a winner. This week, it’s:
They panicked the public with talk of the virus
The butcher was worried – his name was Cyrus
One night, when the store closed
He took all the bog rolls
Went home and confessed to a scroll of papyrus. A scroll of papyrus that he used as his journal and sometimes hid in the linen closet – on the top shelf under a bunch of pillow cases, unless he was keeping it under the bed, or in the garage; but then the police found it and he was arrested, went to court and got sent to jail… not for very long though (it was only toilet paper, after all)
bread, butter,
don’t care about the clutter
egg, cheese
oh, thank god a sneeze
I don’t want that terrible, low mortality, not as bad as the flu which has a vaccine and still kills more people but does not invoke stupidity, panic buying and food hoarding, disease
Congratulations, Tnkerr and Deb! You are the most terrible poets of the week!
These two won for their trick of expanding out that last line to terrible proportions, after poeming so spot-on and terribly about hoarding. They (and a couple others) stood out for using this element to make their contributions worse, particularly since everyone’s poems are so terrible this week they are quite good!
While some are hoarding by the ton,
Others find no way to wipe their bum.
Trauma horrifying!
Dirty bottoms multiplying!
Someone please, help me find some!!
Hours before Armageddon
Down shopping aisles carefully treadin’
Just fillin’ my trolly
Promotin’ the folly
It’s not tears, it’s just fears that I’m spreadin’
We’re stuck in quarantine for a fortnight,
Our essential supplies are running light,
‘Nuff food and water ain’t our issue,
We failed to stock a pile of toilet tissue;
We’ve gone from sittin’ pretty to sittin’ tight.
There once was a store by the lee
That was fully stocked for everyone’s needs.
It had boondaggles, hoozits and comic sans font;
It had everything a lad or lass could possibly want!
But alas, it had one failing short: no toliet paper, so I’ll use me shirt.
“It is the end of the world”, someone chokes; there is a lull.
Stockpiling food for twenty years and toilet paper rolls,
But we’re all out—what do we do
Go out to Walmart, brawl with others like a zoo;
Then leave empty handed—outside, someone is selling them one hundred dollars per half roll!
There’s a man in DC called The Pres
He t-wee-ts, he pooh-poohs, and he says
It’s all something minor
Like everything from China
A few less old folk, who cares?
There are empty shelves down at the store
idiots crashing their carts by the door
I would have been late
till I pulled out the 38
now there’s great stocks of bodies on their floor
I’m getting a few extra things in
lots of meat and beans if they’re tinned
it was quite busy down there
until I coughed in the air
and the crowds miraculously thinned
I’ve got my mask on so I’ll be OK,
got my sanitiser and various sprays
got my loo roll and lentils
and ammo to shoot mentals
should be alright for a couple of days
With a P-51 and a stash of old food,
One can hold out in style, lighten the mood.
But you’ll still feel alone
With no one to bone,
So be sure to bring tissues and lube.
‘It’s a risk,’ said the serial hoarder,
‘And I might cause civil disorder,
Buy buying up Frosties,
And making you crossties,
So maybe I’ll stick to cornflakes.’
Or
To hoard takes three things: there’s pluck
And a significant dollop of luck,
But between me and you
On top of those two
Is you really must not give a fig (other soft fruits are available until some silly sod has bought them all)
A man in a fit of elation
Stockpiled like the rest of the nation
Well, bog roll he had
But it left him quite sad
When all the pasta gave him constipation!
There was a a wee lass from Madrass
Who needed paper to wipe up her ass.
She looked in a shop ran around the block
Finally settled on her grandpappies sock.
Boom boom.
Shelves stripped bare including the Gluten free
Load your boot with every single last frozen pea
You can keep your 10 year supply of toilet roll
Fill your trolley with all the Chicken casserole
But keep your pigging hands off my Yorkshire Tea
To avoid all the germs in the store
Gladys ate a bluebird and a boar
She washed down that pig
With an isolated swig
That socially infected her snout with a stout.
***PG-13 Warning.***
Traffic was so light yesterday
Officer Joe met his mistress to play
But his wife had a fever
And before he could leave her
He’d slipped his virus in her beaver.
—–
Thank you so much for brightening my week. I trust you had as much fun writing as I did reading. Come back tomorrow for next week’s prompt; we’ve got a potentially long road yet of more internet time together.
Tnkerr and Deb: Here’s a badge you can post as proof of your poetic mastery:
Ron was just your average sort of guy: tallish, wideish, oldish, kindish. He drove his reliable old pickup with the reliable old hardtop around the neighborhood every day; often, he drove around several times a day.
Some of the residents talked to Ron. Most did not. Most didn’t notice him or his truck, despite its nearly always being full to bursting with their latest Amazon packages and Domino’s pizza coupons.
One day, Mrs. Hempsworth happened on Ron at the exact moment she went to retrieve her mail. Startled, she supposed she ought to make small talk. “Oh. Um. Hello.”
Ron didn’t look up from sorting his elasticized mail bundles into various slots, yet his voice sounded cheery. “Howdy.”
“Lovely day.”
“Oh, yes.”
Mrs. Hempsworth didn’t know what else to comment on, and cast about for a subject. Her eyes fell on his overstuffed vehicle. “Lots of packages.”
Ron stopped his shuffling and turned her direction. His pale blue eyes met her paint-lined browns. His gaze shifted to his truckload. Back to her. He blinked, surprised. “Yes.”
“Erm,” Mrs. Hempsworth fumbled. “Does it take you a while to deliver them all?”
Another blink. “Yes.”
“Oh.” She paused, out of her depth.
Ron helped. “‘Course, it’s been worse lately.”
Now she blinked. “Oh?”
“Yep.” Ron went back to sorting. “Everyone’s been orderin’ toilet paper off Amazon. It takes up too much space.”
She blushed, but the mail carrier’s white whispy hair was bent over a bin. He straightened, proferring a medium-sized package that weighed less than it appeared. Charmin was printed across the top.
“11259, right?”
She nodded and accepted her delivery without her realizing it. The man closed up the community mailbox, locked it with a key, picked up his empty bin, and headed back to his truck. “See ya,” he called, without looking back.
Mrs. Hempsworth watched the battered pickup drive away, the shifting packages within it sliding against the open windows of the hardtop. She clutched her toilet paper to her chest in a paranoid gesture, then relaxed. What did it matter that the mail carrier knew about her orders? It was his job, after all…
Hi. This is the part where I say, “Hi,” and mention that this is our 63rd time around the terrible poetry track.
Here is where I give some directions. I still like our mishmash of sources contest, à la Ern Malley, for a way to create terribly as well. Really, the trick is to write like you’ve never been taught how to do poetry.
Here are the specifics for this week:
Topic: Stockpiling against a worldwide disaster, in limerick form.
Length: A limerick. They’re five lines: AABBA, in anapestic meter.
Rhyming: Yes. In AABBA anapestic meter format.
Make it terrible! Got it? Make it terrible!! The world’s ending, after all!
Rating: PG-13. This is the perfect time to panic …poetically.
You have till 8:00 a.m. MST next Friday (March 20) to submit a poem.
Use the form below if you want to be anonymous for a week.
If not, and for a more social experience, include your poem or a link to it in the comments. Please comment if your pingback link doesn’t show up within a day.
Now’s the perfect time for levity. Give it a whirl.
There once was a dino named Ptery
Who loved to eat tree stars and berries.
Then, out of the blue,
Ptery saw rocks that flew;
Now, Ptery is becoming an evolutionary.
Chel Owens 