A Journal of the Plague Year
Coping with a mutating virus during a global pandemic requires adaptability, and a sense of dark humor for our Everyman type.
It was during the time after the Coronavirus had mutated to the Carnival Virus that the discovery had been made that public protection was possible against the new threat only while wearing full clown regalia, so Ted trudged around the aisles of his local supermarket in his oversized floppy shoes, white face paint, and auburn wig. He honked his rubber-bulbed horn and waved his large white gloves at a neighbor he recognized heading through the produce section, who waved back and paused to direct a spray of seltzer water in Ted's general direction.
"How the world has changed!," Ted mused as he reached the checkout line, being cautious to observe social distancing. The cashier, likewise in full clown garb, asked Ted if he'd be paying for his transaction with funny money or toilet paper rolls. Ted elected to pay with funny money, producing several rubberized bills that bore the image of President Ronald Frump. Flopsy the cashier accepted the bills, gave Ted several Mexican jumping beans in change, and honked an air horn at him to indicate that the transaction was completed. Ted pocketed his change, and could feel the jumping beans pulsating in his pocket as he walked away. He found that if he put enough jumping beans into the pouch of his Jockey shorts that he could be happy all day, and no one would be any the wiser.
Ted kept an appointment the next day at his doctor's office to get a booster shot for the Carnival Virus. His doctor entered wearing Groucho Marx glasses, and pasted Ted in the face with a cream pie. "That ought to hold you for another eight months!," laughed the medico as he clapped Ted on the back with a hand buzzer. The receptionist hit Ted with a water balloon on his way out the door.
Alas, Ted's immunity to the virus was short-lived, as the following week it mutated to the Buccaneer Virus. Proper treatment required the wearing of an eye patch, acquisition of a parrot to roost on one's shoulder, and carrying both a cutlass and spyglass at all times.
"Damn," groused Ted, "and we used to think that wearing a face mask was too hard!"