American Queer Life: Singing the COVID Cootie Blues

When a quart of Purell sells for more than a barrel of oil, when stores run out of sympathy cards, you know you’re living in a hellish, upside-down world. Suddenly, because of the novel coronavirus, we’ve got a lot of time on our hands.

Which I worry about: my filthy, disgusting, deadly hands. I touch 37,000 things in my home, all potentially crawling with COVID cooties. The virus seems to live on anything but molten lava. Supposedly, once you pump antibacterial goo on your paws—and this is where dog cones could come in handy—you’re free to rub your itchy eyes, pick your nose, and lick your fingers. Which according to scientists, we do about 37 times a minute, an easy way to infect yourself. But that dispenser I’ve gripped with my filthy, disgusting, deadly hands? I swear it glows like a Chernobyl children’s playground.

I worry about driving my car, Shavonda Honda. Returning from the grocery store, I ticked off tactile actions and had a panic attack. I counted 3,700! We’re driving a hearse to our own funeral.

First, you touch your keys or key fob. Keys are the ninja star of COVID-cootie death. Then you pull, press, turn, or shift gobs of knobs, buttons, switches, or handles, all before you leave the garage. Your phone, water bottle? Lethal threats.

God forbid you have to get gas; that’s a plethora of contagious touches, about 37. If you pay with filthy, COVID-cootie-infested cash, you might as well lick a Franklin. But gas is cheap.

I’ve eliminated touching the turn signal, the gear shift twice, and mirrors. I don’t signal my turns, and I don’t back up. I wait for the car in front of me to leave so I can drive forward. I don’t adjust mirrors so I can see some idiot driving up my ass. Don’t they know I might be turning?

Unavoidable, indirect contact? The microscopic critters swarm on your car seats like fleas on a cat’s coat. And like fleas, they can jump (I read that on the internet). Your clothes are now a shroud of pestilence. Strip, and burn them.

So, that’s like 370 contacts with lethal COVID cooties. Boom, gone! You’re welcome. Just serving my community.

To recap: CAR = DEATH TRAP. Because of this equation, I had my partner Neil’s bike tuned up. He suggested attaching the neighbor kid’s training wheels. Though I haven’t ridden a bike in about 37 years, I hear it’s like riding a bike: Comes right back to ya.

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I’d drench Shavonda in vinegar, bleach, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, and Drano, but I’d probably set off a lethal gas cloud poisoning a 10-block area.

I still have to drive to buy food. I worry about Bucky, the grocery store clerk. Is he a hero or an autocrat in training? I worry about going the wrong direction down grocery aisles, so I back up. I know, sneaky. That’s when I met Bucky. He was not amused.

Craving Vitamin C, I worry my cute Cuties are covered in COVID-cooties (say that 10 times). I’ve been snarfing the orange orbs because, well, one word: scurvy.

Two words: toilet paper. Seriously? Before the COVID-cooties invaded, did Americans not wipe their asses? And I’m thinking of getting those horseshoe-shaped, tissue paper covers for the toilet seat. Since they slide off, I’ll keep tape nearby.

I worry about baking chocolate shortages—we all have our priorities.

I worry about rubber gloves—mittens of false hope, I call them—where nature is throwing a Mardi Gras of disease. You touch an infected pen, put it in your mouth, pffft! You’re a goner.

I worry about loose masks easily permeated by those crafty, COVID cooties. A friend told me his hair stylist used booby tape ( breast adhesive) to adhere the gaps to his face. I could also use it to tape down the toilet seat covers. Win-win.

Paper towel and rubber band masks? That really makes me worry about sneezing, other people’s sneezing. Known as respiratory aerosols, the slippery driblets, propelled at 100 mph, can travel 200 feet and splurt 100,000 germs into the air. Sneezing is like shooting snot bullets of death out of a cannon.

Almost forgot. Seat belt strap and buckle? Leave them be. Yes, it’s unsafe, but I’d rather die in a car crash than drown in my own phlegm.

Speaking of phlegm—and we all do these days—I worry about not having a ventilator because there’s no guarantee one will be available if I need it. Vinnie’s Ventilators sells cheap, refurbished models (I found him on the internet). It’s an option.

I worry about having to go to a hospital. That would be like attending a COVID cootie convention. Then I worry about nurses, doctors, EMTs, cleaners, technicians, and everyone from all walks of life.

I worry about America, about who’s in charge. Jared Kushner? Pleeeeeze. Someone tell him the federal stockpile is not “our stockpile,” i.e., for Ivanka and the Russians, but for U.S. citizens. And those charts tracking COVID-cootie progression? With him at the helm, pray the v-shape doesn’t turn into a gigantic check mark.

This is my second plague. Been there, done that, doing it again. And again, I have to worry about American civility and integrity and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He did an amazing job during the AIDS pandemic, botched by a past, immoral Republican idiot president, Reagan (and we know how that turned out.)

Dr. Fauci is repeating his avuncular role as the calm voice of facts and science with our current, immoral, Republican, idiot president, and has been embarrassingly treated with contempt and disrespect. Our Whiner-in-Chief would probably like to replace him with Dr. Vlad Zelenko, quack prescriber of the hydroxychloroquine “cure,” a deadly and disproven “cure” allegedly being taken by the idiot president.

One can only hope, but I don’t believe it. He’s just trying to boost the stock of one of his toadies because nothing exudes trust like the name Vlad and a White House endorsement. Would you trust Dracula and Eye-gore? Believing Saint Fauci or Putin’s b*tch expresses the divisive state of America in a nutshell.

I worry about conspiracy theories. Especially the deep-deeper-deepest state conspiracy theory to promote conspiracy theories. Written in the Cyrillic alphabet, no doubt.

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I worry about American anti-vaxers and religious zealots. They besmirch the constitution, waving it high for selfish rights, trampling on everyone else’s. Vigilantes storm capitals like they did the Michigan legislature bearing AK-47s. I’d have called out the National Guard. Or passed out Make America Sick Again hats.

As we enter Phase 4 of the pandemic—
F*ck’ you, I’m doing what I want to do because my president says I can’—I’m having my partner make me a head-to-toe burka. I figure Muslim women wear the most effective personal protection.

I worry about naps. Often I curl up in a ball on the couch, but since COVID-cooties lurk everywhere—EVERYWHERE!—I potentially could be fretting in my own coffin.

I worry about kids and old people and our environment. I worry about the post-COVID world and never hugging anyone again or seeing their smiles. I worry about the upcoming election. I worry about the whole goddamn universe!

Sigh … I think I need to drink 37 bottles of CBD oil and pour scotch on my Cheerios.

Anyway, I hope this has been helpful. If you happen to be passing by someone wearing a burka in a bike accident, it’s probably me from singing the COVID-cootie blues and not paying attention. Don’t let an ambulance take me to the hospital, and don’t touch me…