Clearing the Decks

Pandemic. I think I finally figured it out. The Pandemic, aka COVID19, is Nature’s way of finally deleting the 20^th Century, a sort of clearing the decks to allow for the 21^st Century to really take hold.  We really can now think of the 20^th Century in the same terms we use for, say, the 16^th Century—you know, it happened, it really did include a bunch of stuff, but it’s way gone, erased from our collective memory banks, retrievable only through history books.

Until now, the 21^st Century seemed an afterthought, maybe some stuff that happened to Millennials and of no real importance.   Oh, you were born then? Yeah, right, so now on to more important stuff, like World War II, or The Great Depression, or even, that Vietnam War thing.  So, where were you and what were you doing when Kennedy was assassinated?  And, how amazing was the first Moon Landing? Remember that, sitting there transfixed, watching your Black and White TV as he stepped onto the surface of the Moon?

Now, to be fair, 911 was a transfixing moment in time that people now alive, will always remember. Where were you when the plane hit that building? But, in retrospect, 911 seems like maybe the ending of an era, the 20^th CENTURY ERA.  Yeah, 911 was a definitive 21^st Century event. I mean, it happened only 9 months into the new century.  But it really represented the culmination of a whole series of wartime events, kicked off largely by Reagan, Bush, and others of their ilk. I mean, we had been messing around in the Great Morass known as the Middle East for decades, cozying up this dictator, or that dictator, and then getting pissed because the dictators wouldn’t mind us.  They always seem to have a mind of their own, these petty tyrants.  So, eventually, we were bound to really enrage one of them and they would do something terminally stupid, like blow up the World Trade Center with an airplane—thanks Saudi Arabia.

But then we entered the 21^st Century for real, with the odd unnecessary War (thanks Shrub) that was really a holdover from that nasty 20^th Century.  And we seem to have stumbled along with various presidents, Shrub, Clinton, Obama, and then Mr. Dreadful, President Stupidhead.  It’s interesting how he seems to actually define the 21^st Century.  I mean, the first three, Shrub, Clinton and Obama seem to me to represent a continuation of the line of 20^th Century presidents.  Some of them were good, great even (think FDR), some were not so good (well Reagan was actually awful, but . . .) but most were at least reminiscent of other 20^th Century presidents.

And then Trump hit. And it is as though the 20^th century left us, and we are in the full grip of the 21^st century.  And then, the PANDEMIC strikes—COVID19. And we have a whole new language, COVIDIOCY, spoken by all the COVIDIOTs in the White House (don’t forget Fox News. They also speak nothing but COVIDIOCY).  And bang, the 20^th century vanished from the earth.  We are now fully in the grip of the 21^st Century.

And I can hear my grandkids now, as they regale (bore) their grandkids, much like I have been doing for several decades.  “And kids, let me tell you about the time the PANDEMIC struck Earth. I was in college, see, poised to graduate (or whatever) and then this thing hit us. And, I know you will not understand this, but nobody was allowed to go outside with other people. Yeah, it was like the whole world suddenly disappeared inside their homes and nobody could come out.  I know, I know, that sounds really stupid, but if you did go outside and meet and greet with your BFFs, you might well die. I mean, I might not be here now to tell you about that mess.”

And so the stories will go on, to the delight of the grandkids, until they get bored and ask, “So, grandpa, what’s on the multiverse (replacement for TV)?” And then grandpa will have to change the subject.

“So, kids did I ever tell you about the time President Stupidhead told us about the time he drank a cup of Coevfefee??? Hahahahahahahaha”

“Grandpa, you’re just joking, right?  I mean, a president of the United States couldn’t pronounce coffee??”

“Yeah, it’s true. But he didn’t seem to know how to read, so he couldn’t pronounce a lot of words. I mean, he said that he graduated from college, but we think he never made it past the 4^th grade.” We think maybe, his daddy paid to have someone sit in class in his name, while Stupidhead stayed at home eating hangaburrs.”

“But then he told us that maybe we should be drinking or injecting bleach to kill off any of the nasty viruses. And later he said he was only being sarcastic and joking, but by that time, some of his stupid followers had actually tried it and experienced less than pleasant sensations.”

“See, he used to give these COVID19 press briefings, in which he tried telling lies to the press, and then would get furious when they asked him questions about some COVIDIOCY he had just uttered. Yeah, it was a mess. Those were such fun times.”

And the games went on, daily. Every time you turned on the TV to some news program, they were forced to reveal his latest idiocy. It was like some never ending game of Stupidhead rules the world.”

And on and on. And so, the pandemic began to define the new century, erasing all thoughts of that century gone by.  All the good stuff, and all the bad stuff simply disappeared, and the century itself seemed to disappear, becoming a blank state that nobody ever entered. And whatever else occurs as a result of this pandemic, the erasure of the 20^th century will remain, in my now dim mind, the single most important effect. Yes, people died. But Wars did that too.  But now, all we know is this 21^st Century. And, for better or worse, we now need to look ahead to what comes next in this weird new century that seems to have just begun . . . 20 years after it technically started.

So, stay tuned citizens of the 21^st century.  Hopefully COVIDIOCY will soon be just a laughing matter about yesteryear.