As this plague descends upon us, I felt it my scribe-worthy duty to share some words of encouragement, humour and hope, for these, our troubled times.

But, alas, I must deny my eight fans around the world a true work of art that replicates what SNL may do anyway next week.

I am so sorry. I let you down.

Please know that my heart and mind was exactly where yours were - because you are as twisted as I am.

I wanted to add some humor, dispel some myths and trivialize this extremely dangerous and heavy situation if only for a moment of reprieve from a very taxing week - and, y’all, it’s only Wednesday.

I dug up Orson Welles’ script for War of the Worlds and proceeded to begin a parody - as you do.

I found pictures in both reality and animation that describe symptoms and give context to the seriousness of those with compromised immunity fighting for their lives with what some of us would only feel a headache and cough.

But I stopped myself.

I have too many people in my life, kids, babies, elderly, etc., that if exposed to something like this, I would pass it along and they might die more immediately. So I had trouble making jokes about the fatality scare associated with it.

I am humanoid after all, not a jerk.

It is a pandemic putting people in a cancellation rush and that always gets me satirical. It also canceled a very important opportunity for me that I have been planning my life around and sacrificing for over a year…which really started to make me seethe with hate for everything “COVID-19.”

But I have to pass on this editorial parody because the scare is real and hits home.

…however,

I will leave you with these words and my opinions of them from the powers that have been, trying to keep us all alive enough to justify various ongoing experiments. I hope they help…to keep you all away from me.

Basic things to do to protect yourself from Coronavirus alongside Tasha’s nonmedical thoughts:

1. Stay aware of the latest information about it from reliable sources - not Uncle Joe or Auntie Margaret or Felicia on Facebook or Craig on Insta. Go to the World Health Organization (https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public) or the Center for Disease Control to know what you really need to know. Don’t spread fake news.

2. Wash your hands frequently and vigorously. Scrape your skin off and scald yourself if you see me within 100 feet of you. Please. Purell is not enough and there just happens to be a shortage of it now. Knock-off brands are available through Amazon Prime, but they may have names from countries that lend themselves to the current rampant xenophobia that you started on social media with your news outlets and your reporting of more deaths in some countries over others… and if your mind said ‘I’m not buying Chinese knock off Purell’, well, you’re a racist and we can no longer be friends.

3. Maintain social distancing - something introverted humanoids like myself have been doing for years now, no thanks to people who insist we do things as a group. Fuck your group activities, I’m staying home…which incidentally does nothing for my immunity. In fact, staying home too much will weaken my ability to fight off infections even further. So, get out there, but don’t talk to or touch anyone - just stay home and talk to and touch yourself, but not in the face. You can’t be trusted because you don’t wash your hands the right way - see step 2.

4. Use your elbow to catch coughs and sneezes and wash your elbows regularly. Actually, you will need to increase your elbow sanitizing until we are all in the global clear.

5. If you have a fever, cough and can’t breathe, get to a doctor immediately. Call in advance and don’t catch Uber or Lyft to get there. Walk and let the germs in the air attach themselves to your face since you touched it without washing your hands and caused this whole mess. If you don’t melt from the microbes in the ether that have now taken over the world and cancelled every public event, school and shut down venues of industry where working as a physically collected group of humans is still required (…and why?) and you, through some miracle, make it to triage…I hope you took some comic books, because your ass will be quarantined.

Thank you and godspeed.

~T