January 1, 2021
Just Saying…
By Q.C. Jones
2020 Goodbye, farewell, auf Wiedersehen and…
As my friends down south are fond of saying… “Mr. 2020, don’t let the door hit you where the good lord split you.”
Looking back at 2020 is like watching your in-law’s house disappear in the rear-view mirror and imagining you have the magical power of shrinking disagreeable people, unpleasant things, and, maybe, terrible years into oblivion.
Traditionally, genteel folks devote their New Year’s Eve to welcoming in a promising new phase of life. Your faithful servant, observer of life, and normally polite pal QC does not feel one ounce of remorse in saying, “I despise you, 2020. Go away, I hate you!” With the air cleared and this bit of political incorrectness out of the way, allow me to set the stage for your next four minutes of reading bliss. QC Jones plans to fold, bend, staple, and otherwise mutilate all things tied to 2020, drag the body out to some barren hill, and toss it into a shallow, unmarked grave.
The low points of the last year were many; in fact, too numerous to mention in a single article. If dates in time were people, this amalgamation would be the FBI’s most-wanted list and Interpol’s Red Notice collection of those committing crimes against humanity.
Like serial killer Ted Bundy and Wisconsin’s favorite cannibal Jeffery Dahmer, 2020 had an uneventful childhood. Even notorious serial killers can be cute kids, but give them time. Our friend 2020 started off in an uneventful way. QC and friends traveled to Mexico at the start of the year. The Chinese New Year’s was successfully celebrated. Life was steaming towards a fantastic St. Paddy’s, then things started turning strange. First, it was a shortage of paper product of the toilet and kitchen variety. Then a strange disappearance of certain staples of can goods. On Friday the 13th of March things took a turn for the worse. Entire states shut down, the monster was loosed.
Schools, restaurants, bowling allies, concert venues, malls, and anything tied to public gatherings were closed. Initially, we heard this would last for two or three weeks at the longest. Somehow it did not. Being cooped up at home became the new norm. Our living rooms resembled a latter-day Cuban Missile Crisis fallout shelter.
Hanging on the fallout shelter thought. Like most people of our generation, my family had a designated fallout shelter.
In our case it was a corner room of in our basement. I can remember my parents calmly answering tough questions posed by a seven-year-old QC. What would happen if we left before the radiation decayed? What would we eat? More important in my “adorable” little mind, what would we do to entertain ourselves and fill the time?
The struggle to self-entertain during the Pandemic was as daunting as the fall-out shelter dilemma. We binge-watched some god-awful TV shows. Remember the Tiger King? The ordeal was hard on relationships. On a personal basis, QC’s lovely bride was forced to endure night-after-night of Vampire movies until she could stand it no more. Rather than face divorce after 40+ years of wedded bliss, I relented and suggested the interesting genre, Korean Zombie movies. A week later, compromise being no longer in her soul, she forbid my control of the TV remote.
With Summer came summer cancellations. Fireworks displays, baseball games, family reunions and anything even mildly amusing – forbidden. Shortly after each holiday, Americans received serious chastisement from community leaders for getting close enough to clink our glasses in a toast to fun and merriment.
Fall was worse, many times worse. Our family purchased a no-touch thermometer. Temperatures were taken morning, noon, and night. Random sniffles, a sore throat, or allergy-driven coughing sent minds into a whirl. Was this The Virus, or a sign of the season? Morning regimen morphed to a health scan inventory of symptoms.
The Holiday Season was put on full stop. Halloween was a social distancing touch event. Candy given by remote control. No Thanksgiving, without serious debate. Even turkeys were required to be masked. No Christmas parties because they could be super spreader events. Even Santa was impacted. Reindeer were rumored to be carriers of COVID. Exactly zero kids, whether naughty or nice, sat on the Jolly One’s lap in 2020. The highlight of New Year’s Eve was vodka flavored hand sanitizer and the Times Square Ball falling to a crowd of three socially distanced TV personalities.
Goodbye, 2020. Greetings to your little brother 2021. A vaccine has been developed. QC discovered a computer program that calculates when a person might expect to get the shot. Currently, there are 118 Million people ahead of me in the US, 1.2 Million ahead in Iowa, and 67,500 ahead in Scott Country. (find where you are here: https://tinyurl.com/QCsCoronaShotCalculator)
The first quarter of 2021 will resemble the line down at Whitey’s; receive a number, patiently wait your turn, and for life to begin. As soon as I get my vaccine, I plan to drink whiskey from a dirty glass, hug complete strangers, drink out of water fountains, and jump into the middle of big crowds. Just saying…
