Yes, we need testing, just not the kind you think ...

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So much of our tottering economy’s hoped-for rebound is pegged to testing. It’s all we’re hearing.

The states need tests. The municipalities need tests. The hospitals need tests.

I see many restaurants and businesses are looking to gun-like devices that when pointed at a potential customer’s forehead will light up when that person is registering a telltale fever.

My fear is that in these contentious times when you point a gun-shaped device at anyone’s forehead many will in court-sanctioned self-defense draw a real weapon and come up blastin’.

America 2020: Where you don’t need a fever to act like a hot head!

Still, by all means, let’s test. Let’s test the elderly. The young. The polite social distancer and the in-your-face protester. Test the city dweller and test her country cousin. 

Test! Test! Test!

But let’s be sure we have a test that determines the outcome that matters most.

PATIENT: “I thought this coronavirus test was a swab up the nose and we’re done. Why am I hooked up to these monitors and why’s my right hand on this Bible?”

TECH: “This isn’t that kind of test. Now just please truthfully answer the questions. Do you post political upper-case rants on FaceBook?”

PATIENT: “If I see a situation that needs a little homespun common sense then I exercise my 1st Amendment rights and,  yes, I sometimes for emphasis use ALL-CAPS.”

NURSE: “Have you ever stepped in front of an elderly shopper to snag the last roll of toilet paper when you knew you already had sufficient toilet paper at home?”

PATIENT: “Well, there was that one time — but that was before the Don Patron was closing up!”

NURSE: “Do you ever watch the COVID-19 death toll demographics and secretly cheer when it momentarily seems like it’s wiping out a larger proportion of your favored presidential candidate’s opponents?”

PATIENT: “Hey, it’s God’s will …”

NURSE: “That’s enough. I’m afraid I have bad news …”

PATIENT: “Yes?”

NURSE: “Our tests indicate that unless you change your core behavior, there’s a 96 percent chance your soul is going to Hell.”

PATIENT: “Ninety-six percent? Jesus H. Christ!”

NURSE: “Uh, taking the Lord’s name in vain just bumped it up another point. Oh! And you’re also testing positive for coronavirus.”

PATIENT: “Mother-&*%#!!!”

NURSE: “ … 98 …”

Imagine how much better people would behave if they took a test that would within reason relate a percentage likelihood that their soul was headed for eternal damnation. 

All but the most irredeemable would undergo overnight personality transformations that would make old Ebenezer seem like a spiritual stoic.

They’d shelter the homeless, nurse the sick and year-round spread the cheer of the Christmas season.

God bless us, Everyone!

We live our lives like there are no consequences to our rampant incivilities.

A simple test calculating the chance we’ll wind up in Hell might change that. And who wouldn’t welcome even a little more civility?

Because my fear isn’t the results of tests that calculate the chances we’re all going to Hell.

My fear is we’ll all wake up one day and realize Hell’s here.

Related …

The Bible needs exclamation points!!!

Words in Bible but not in my “Last Baby Boomer” book & vice versa

How old will you be in heaven?

Hats in Heaven

Will getting a harp help me get into heaven?

What constant prayer can achieve

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It was way back in ’08 when I first proposed that America needed a “National No-Prayer Week.”

The premise was that maybe after more than 2,000 years of fervent prayer — prayer for everything from world peace to that the floating guppie would reanimate —  maybe God had fallen behind, that maybe He could use a break. 

I wasn’t suggesting anyone stop believing in God. Just for one week quit bugging him.

This was back when I mistakenly believed I could solve all my occupational woes by crafting one big idea that would have me simultaneously hailed as either a visionary on Fox News and a heretic on CNN or vice versa.

Remember 2008? It was a time of conflict, ignorance and widespread division that fell along political and cultural divides.

Or as I call it, “The Good ol’ Days!”

But with all the global tumult, I’ve put a renewed focus on saving the human race through prayer. 

Only this time instead of suggesting we stop praying my idea is that we start praying … and NEVER stop.

It may surprise most of you, my heathen friends, but I’m a praying fool. I pray all the time, most notably at the family dinner table. It’s a role I relish because I want our daughters to know we can, in my opinion, address the Almighty in casual terms about mundane matters. 

I think we construct obstacles between ourselves and our Creator when we say our prayers with speech that feels foreign coming out of our own mouth. 

It’s why, too, I conclude prayers with things like asking God to tell Tom Petty we still miss him.

This alertness proved helpful Easter Sunday when I turned the holy communications over to the females. I did this because I’m in a bit of a prayer rut.

My prayers have become mopey and aggrieved, not like I’m addressing our deity, but like I’m complaining to the Wendy’s drive-thru manager over the dorky kid giving me a medium Coke and charging us for the Biggie.

“Dear God … Please rid the world of coronavirus, rampant injustice, poverty, petty hatreds, the tyrannical rule of Roger Goodell  and all the other punishing crap that makes being alive such sorry condition. I mean … Dear God!” 

So insolent. So disrespectful. I knew I needed a break.

So on Easter, I began my aloud prayer with, “Dear God … thank you for this food and for all this government-sanctioned family togetherness. Oh, man, our blessings in that realm sure are ample. I’ll now, Lord, turn it over to Val, Josie and Lucy who I now invite to share with you in silence their gratitudes and concerns.”

The immediate effect was peacefulness. The house was blessedly still and quiet.

Ten seconds passed. My head was bowed and my eyes were closed I suspect the girls were already beginning to exchange nervous looks.

Ten seconds is a long time to be thrown into a blind date with The Creator.

At 20 seconds, I began to wonder who’d break first. I could, by now, feel their eyes on me, waiting for me to conclude. But I had no intention of relenting. I wanted them to pray ’til Kingdom come.

Maybe God would answer their prayers.

Maybe He did because at 30 seconds Val abruptly interjected “Amen! Let’s eat.”

Who knows? Maybe Mommy’s action was exactly what they were praying for. Someday I’ll ask. 

Either way, it’s more evidence my supper table schemes are working.

The kids listen to my prayers!

I just wish I could be sure God does.

Related …

National No-Pray Week

When idiots pray

America needs snitch prayers

Proper prayer posture

How come there’s no Mrs. God?

Support your small businesses! Tin Lizzy kitchen open Friday for takeout/delivery!

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Welcome evidence of human activity stared me right in the face today as I made my solitary trudge to the front door of the Tin Lizzy.

They’re opening Friday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. for take-out or delivery!

The modified menu includes your typical Lenten specials for … for … reasonable, I’m sure, mystery prices to come.

I like that Rick and Lisa chose not to include the price. After all, one of the most popular features in the building is a wheel of chance where lucky participants can win a can of Spam (yay!) and unlucky ones are required to buy the bartender a drink (boo).

You’d be amazed at the bar-wide drama that plays out on that wheel of Spam fortune as it clicks down to victory or despair.

We’re into about Week 4 of the building being on lock down. 

It’ll be five years in July since I began celebrating the Tin Lizzy in books and here on the blog. It’s just the coolest place. I love it here.

But I’m used to loving it so much more than I do now that I’m here all alone.

I still come in almost every day for at least three hours in the morning, and a couple in the afternoon.

I try to be discreet. I don’t want anyone to get the impression there’s any party going on and they weren’t invited. I wonder what people think when they see me going in the door.

They probably think, “There goes that writer guy again. I’ll bet he spends his whole day drinking and talking to himself. I’d like to see what would happen if for even one day he had to work a real job.”

So at least passing strangers are thinking the same thing my family thinks when they see me go out the door.

It’s odd being all alone in a place so renown for liveliness.

It wasn’t that long ago when people were always popping in to say hello and I was always trying to think of ways to make their visit memorable or gossip worthy.

I’ve thought of sitting at my desk buck naked and telling visitors I write better in the nude. It’d be fun to see how rapidly the story’d spread.

Hell, these days I could roam the building nude and no one would see.

Well, maybe the owner. He still pops in. But I’d be afraid to be up here buck naked with him.

What if he’d call the cops? What if he threw my ass out on the street?

Worse, what if he thought it was a new custom and began removing his clothes?

There are some types of “Buck naked” with which I want nothing to do.

So stop in tomorrow and order one of the specials. It’ll make me happy to hear noises again and you’ll be supporting a local business when your support has never meant more.

The Tin Lizzy is a cool building, but it’s just a building.

It’s probably similar to the building most of you are in right now. 

It’s the people in the building who make it truly cool.

Related …

I’m lovin’ Tin Lizzy cornhole!

A Tin Lizzy advertorial

My Tin Lizzy ghost story

I’m now hosting Tin Lizzy book talks

Someone stole Buck’s book

If I should die before I wake ...

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Give my shoes, the tri-colored Giorgio Brutini dandies, to the funeral director. I want to go my great reward in stylish footwear. I don’t understand the how or why, but in the past two years I’ve developed an odd shoe fetish. I now  look at the Johnston & Murphy catalogue the way I used to look at Playboy. Either way, I imagine proper afterlife footwear will matter and I want to make a good first impression.

Donate my golf clubs to the First Tee organization so they’ll go to some less fortunate. Nothing has made me more persistently miserable than trying to properly strike a golf ball. Conversely, few things have made me as happy as the time I’ve spent either anticipating golf or talking about playing golf after we’re done. First Tee’s a wonderful organization for perpetuating the furies and joys of this confounding game.

I have two quality Cross pens. Give the gold one to Josie, the pearl one to Lucy. Tell them the pens are sentimentally significant to the old man. I commemorated the publication of my two most recent books with the splurge and signed lots of books with each. Then tell them that one day, guaranteed, each will lose these pricey pens. They will feel bad, like they let me down. Tell them not to fret. They’re just pens. I like my pens, but I love my daughters.

I have about 15 Tommy Bahama camp shirts. Wearing one makes me feel perfectly relaxed. Perhaps because it’s rare I’m wearing one when I’m not holding a bourbon on the rocks. Have a party at the Tin Lizzy and let all my friends fight over their favorites.

Please give my wife an introduction to a handsome handyman who’s good with a wrench. After 25 years with me, she’s deserving of a man who can fix a leaky toilet, mobilize a busted vacuum cleaner and is eager to wage war with nature when the lawn gets a shade past shaggy. Please, too, preserve the dignity of my memory by keeping the courtship chaste through at least 2027.

Give all my Winston Churchill books to some bone-headed liberal so that he may absorb some of the warmth, wit and wisdom of one of history’s great conservatives, to me the most interesting man since Jesus Christ.

Give all my FDR books to some bone-headed conservative so that she can absorb some of the warmth, wit and wisdom of one of history’s great liberals and see why Churchill with an open-heart revered him more than he did any other man alive.

Am I forgetting anything?

I am.

My internal organs!

Give my kidneys to a pair of young single mothers who without the donation would orphan darling children who need their mommies. Give my liver to the army vet who’s struggled both physically and spiritually since the goddamned war. Let it be my liver that leads to a change of heart and may he grow beloved as he devotes his life to helping others.

My heart? Let’s give that to the dear granny whose own, though full of love, is weakened by hereditary defect. Let it be my heart that beats for her as she delights yet another generation of lapped loved ones.

Save the best for my eyes. Give them to the boy born blind and let him see the exact same things I saw. Let him see all the glory, the smiles, the kindness, the beauty and the all the hope that’s hidden in the pessimistic darkness.

Lastly, bestow upon the whole world my native optimism which has sustained me through so much unbidden tumult. It’s useful even when it’s foolhardy, giving birth as it does to the conviction that we’ll beat this and what will emerge in its ugly shadow will be a better, more tolerant place of cheer we can all share.

And on that day let there be a grand jubilee like the world’s never seen, a party of universal revelry  …

On second thought, screw it.

Gimme all my shit back. Right now — starting with the shoes.

I’m not done kicking ass and, by God, I intend to look sharp while I’m at it.

And tell Mr. Fix-It to stop staring at my wife or he’s first!

Related …

Handing it to arm transplants

Full body donations & why I’d want the body of a black female

Weekly World News & baby born without a nose

Mom’s going to Pitt! A body donation update

Insights on eyeballs

Space Station 'nauts could repopulate planet

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At times like these, the native optimist in me is at war with my inner doomsday realist, the one who senses an existential threat.

It looks like in order to keep the economy humming, many people are willing to risk the continuity of the species. I find the idea of a whimsically imposed  Easter deadline ludicrous, especially when our best experts predict by Easter our major cities will be seeing long lines of dead.

I used to trust in the Biblical balm of Matthew 5:3 that states “the meek shall inherit the Earth.”

It’s a lovely sentiment because it automatically seems to rule out obnoxious talk show hosts and their guests. But  the rise of social media reveals a more obvious flaw in the declaration. 

There are no meek left! I know a few folks who can be described as demure, coy, and refined — and you’re all reading my blog. You’re sexy, too!

Just not meek.

So who will inherit the earth?

Their names are Andrew Morgan, Oleg Skripochka and Jessica Meir.

Or as I call them Adam, Adam and Eve.

They are currently the only earthlings not on earth. Commercial flights (already infected) don’t count.

The trio have been manning the International Space Station since prior to the advent of the coronavirus.

It’s a stupendous failure of marketing that we know nothing about these highly accomplished individuals (all white) who appear so rigidly straight arrow the odds of them having ever told a fart joke, much less farted, are astronomical.

But for them what isn’t?

On paper at least, this is an impressive trio.

Morgan, 44, is a Morgantown native who now considers New Castle home. A West Point grad, he is an MD with a specialty in sports medicine. He’s served with the special forces and has four children.

Skripochka, 50, is a Russian cosmonaut and a recipient of the Hero of the Russian Federation. That may be impressive or it may be one of those fraudulent honors Putin gives away like candy. Trump maybe has a drawer full of ‘em.

One interesting fact about Skripochka. In 2010 — and this was all unofficial — he while on a spacewalk slipped from an unsecured tether and began drifting to certain annihilation in the great black yonder. Miraculously, he bounced off an antenna and was able to grasp a fortuitously positioned hand railing before drifting off to a grisly demise.

That brings us to Meir, 42, of Caribou, Maine, and to me the most impressive of the crew. Not only is she an astronaut, she’s a marine biologist, a physiologist and a Harvard professor of anesthesia. Her bio says she studied diving habits of emperor penguins in Antarctica and migratory patterns of bar-headed geese over the Himalayas.

One possible complication to her assuming the role of Eve v. 2.0. 

She’s never been married. She’s, perhaps, a lesbian, which would be an inconvenience to say the least for any woman with a mortal duty to repopulate the planet.

More likely, she’s never found a man her equal. I don’t doubt it. I’ve sat next to men in bars nearly my whole life and if I had a choice between studying your typical male in a bar or, say, a bar-headed goose, I’d pick the bird.

Imagine the head start humanity will get with a gene pool seeded by these three achievers. You might be dismayed that Skripochka, a man who forgot to secure his own lifeline, is one-third of humanity’s future, but I hate to think of a future that didn’t include for purposes of levity some Three Stooges elements.

I doubt you’ll hear about it, but some ISS drama may soon take place.

Morgan, Skripochka and Meir are due to be replaced by a new (tainted) crew in just a few weeks.

What if they refuse to answer the door when the replacements knock?

That’s what I’d do. Yes, I’d  slide the little chain over the door, shut out the lights and just pretend no one was home.

In space, no one can hear you ring the doorbell.

It’ll make a great movie.

I’d cast Viggo Mortensen as Morgan because we love him in “Captain Fantastic;” Ana de Armas as Meir because we love her in “Knives Out;” and I’d cast Kevin Spacey to play Skripochka.

Why him?

Despite his recent troubles, I think any movie about space ought to have at least a little Spacey.

Related …

Earth’s plans to occupy Kepler 22b

NASA flagged for excessive celebrating

Space Station reality show has astronomical potential

Sally Ride in OUT-ter space

8.8 billion Earth-like planets, worlds of possibilities

World going to hell & all I wanted was a Cadbury Egg

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Many frontline medical men and women are risking their lives to save total strangers.

Today, I risked my life because I was craving one of those Cadbury eggs.

Chocolate shell, creamy filling, I just love ‘em. How much? The day chickens start laying Cadbury eggs is the day I vow I’ll become a chicken farmer

The coronavirus crisis is challenging us all to differentiate between wants and needs.

For instance, I didn’t want to put air in my tires, but the “low tire air pressure” snitch light was on and I figured I needed to.

So this morning I drove the 0.06 miles between my office and Sheetz, the near-ubiquitous convenience mart that sells pretty much everything except sheets. I tried to think how I could maximize my time spent in the danger zone.

Did I need batteries? Milk? Bread? Another 100 yards of abrasive TP?

I did not. So I wouldn’t have to enter the store. This was reassuring because we all now know how a deliberate mingle with potential carriers can get you killed.

Still, some carefree part of my brain signaled, psst, you know Cadbury eggs are right there by the register and you love Cadbury eggs.

But what if someone saw me? What if someone took a picture on buying candy as the world was going into lockdown? Would someone candy shame me on Facebook?

I thought of a dozen common sense arguments Dr. Anthony Fauci would make against the purchase.

But the craving was intense.

A big part of my concerns is that the COVID-19 germ has in my eyes achieved mythic status. It’s the uber-virus. It’s bent on world domination. It will wipe out anything that gets in its way. It’s behaving like a Fascist European nation did in 1939.

That nation’s name? It’s pronounced GERM-a-nee.

Let’s just assume that’s a coincidence.

I remain stunned that we need to keep six feet between us or the germ can leap from an infected carrier to a healthy innocent.

It boggles the mind.

First of all, why would it risk leaving any host that still had a heartbeat? It’s not only impractical, it’s downright rude.

More fearsome to me is the idea that these germs can launch off one person and land on another 4- to 5-feet away.

Chart it to scale and it’d be like me broad jumping from Latrobe and sticking the landing in Denver.

For cryin’ out loud, they don’t even have legs, much less wings.

We’re entering an interesting phase of the crisis. Even the skeptics are becoming convinced this is, duh, something serious. And you’re starting to see predictable social media spats between people who disagree on the best way to flatten the curve.

The whole “judge-not-lest-ye-be-judged” mindset is the second thing to go in a crisis. 

The first?

Toilet paper!

People are critical of hoarders and those trying to make an indecent profit off their stash, but to me it makes perfect sense.

The biggest assholes are always going to need the most toilet paper.

I apologize for that. We’re all under a lot of stress.

I wonder if my jocular tone might dismay some of you who’d conclude I just don’t get it, that writing about candy when the whole world is going to hell demeans so much suffering.

But I have to be honest and right then at that moment I wanted nothing on Earth more than that sweet confection. 

Does the confession make me a scoundrel? A lout? Maybe, say, a cad?

Or am I sugar-coating it? Will steadfast readers depart? Could this bury me?

Did I lay an egg?

Hmmm…

Cad?

Bury? 

Egg?

Geez, it’s like I’ve lost all perspective.

Maybe it’s just a coping mechanism. 

Or maybe it’s a case of wanting something really bad so for at least a moment you forget about getting something really bad nobody wants.