Might As Well Blog

     Lately I'm reminded of a joke I heard many years ago. During the “mad cow” epidemic, two cows were grazing together in a farmer's field. The first cow says to the other, “This mad cow epidemic has me worried. Last month it was the state next to us. Then two weeks ago it was in the county next to us. Now I hear it's at a farm about ten miles away.” The second cow looks over and says, “What do we have to worry about? We're ducks!!”

    Anyway, I feel like the first cow. Better than being the second cow though.

     It was a week ago that I stopped in at our local Meijer grocery store just to get a bag of potato chips. My jaw dropped when I saw at every check-out huge lines of shoppers, some wearing face masks and their carts filled with as much as they could hold. I turned right around and walked out.

     Only this week did my wife and I return to Meijer. Not nearly as many shoppers this time but the store was not nearly as well stocked as usual. Of course, everyone who's shopped lately knows the usual hard-to-get items—toilet paper, bottled water and disinfectants. But browsing around, there were some other items in short supply. Soft cream cheese was one. I noticed frozen pizzas seemed to be a popular item as they were in short supply, maybe because they're easy to prepare for those used to eating out frequently since restaurants and bars are now closed.

     Since it was St. .Patrick's Day, I looked down the beer aisle for Irish ale and noticed a gap in the bottles that were stocked on the refrigerated shelves. Probably a run on the Irish imports, I figured. Nope. Ironically, it was Corona beer. Not a one there under the Corona sign.

     We checked out with our cart, Wendy endorsing her check for electronic funds transfer with a pen the checkout clerk gave her. Thinking she should sanitize the pen afterwards, my wife asked, “Do you have any hand sanitizer?”

     “Are you joking?” the clerk responded. They didn't even have hand sanitizer for the clerks handling all those groceries.

     Schools and our local library have been closed for a week. When I tried to return a DVD to the library last week, just to put it in the dropbox for returns, I was confronted with padlocks and this sign advising me to hold onto all checked-out materials until the library re-opens:

     But then today I get this e-mail. “FIRST OVERDUE NOTICE. As of the date shown our files show that the following items charged to your account are overdue. Please return these items as soon as possible.” Ironically, not everyone at the library is on the same page.

     My son is working as is his wife so we watched all three grandboys yesterday, trying to entertain them in this time of gloom and despair. No turning on the TV news with its depressing reports of illnesses and casualties across our world. YouTube's OK. Nintendo games, fine. Wendy even gives up her smart phone and Kindle portable tablet so the boys have that to play with too. Keeps everyone happy until . . .

. . . six-year-old Luke brings the Kindle to me and says, “This is dead.”

     C'mon, Luke. Bad choice of words. How about saying, “This needs to be re-charged but it should be healthy and back to normal shortly.”