Thursday Thirteen

This is my 650th Thursday Thirteen in a row. That means I've been doing this every week for 12.5 years. I don't think I've missed a single week.

Such milestones should be marked with special notations, but all I can think about is how things have changed since the middle of March. This is because of a new virus called Covid-19. The virus has never before been seen in humans, and so we have no immunity to it. It has the capability to kill at least 3% or more of the population while sickening another 70%. In my county, that means about 1,000 people would die and another 23,100 people would be ill. Normally, about 325 people in Botetourt County die each year. So the death toll would triple.

These are things I want to remember about this time:

1. The children are not in school, and parents are home trying to teach when they have no clue how to parent, much less teach.

2. Restaurants are shuttered or are offering "curbside pickup" or delivery for take out. That's every single restaurant in the state, and many throughout the nation.

3. Many other businesses considered "non-essential" are closed or shuttered.

4. People have been told to stay home and not go to work, not to shop, not to be around anyone else.

5. "Social distancing" is the new buzzword. (I personally prefer "physical distancing" because I think "social distancing" has implications that are mentally unhealthy.)

6. Gasoline is down to about $1.60 a gallon, the lowest price it has been in years, but there are few cars on the road because people are not traveling.

7. Gatherings of less than 10 people are ok: more than that, and you're committing a Class 1 misdemeanor in my state.

8. Parks, hiking trails, etc., have closed because people apparently can't keep figure out what "stay six feet away from other people" means.

9. A shortage of critical and necessary personal protective equipment (PPE) is creating issues in large cities due to the Covid-19 crisis.

10. We are watching daily press rallies from #45, and near-daily press conferences from the Virginia governor.

11. People who are cautious are shopping in masks and gloves. Others, who are idiots, are going along as if this is nothing, bumping up against people and some really, really stupid people have been licking toilet seats to prove how stupid they are. Part of me hopes the idiots are right and this does turn out to be "nothing," but they are not right, as the body bag counts in larger communities indicate.

12. Panic buying means no toilet paper or cleaning products, even now, though it has been several weeks since this became a crisis here in the United States.

13. If anything, this proves to me the need for a cohesive, strong unified nation, and a federal government with strength and oversight that regulates well and thoughtfully. Unfortunately, we do not have that at the moment.


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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 650th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.