TheBanyanTree: Past the one month mark

[tobie at shpilchas.net]

Friday, April 21th, 2020

Hello fellow shut-ins!

	How is everyone doing out there in the pandemisphere? Is everyone whole and healthy? Could we keep each other company, check in with us from time to time  — act like a family, since many of us are separated from ours?

	I will tell you what’s going on here.  We are past the five week marker of sheltering in place. The furthest I have strayed from the inside of the house was twice to trot out to my car, about ten feet from the garage door, so I could run the engine for a bit and keep the battery from being drained. A certain amount of applied paranoia (or should I call it a phobia) directed my now practiced hand. The sanitation wipes came out to the car with me, as well as a book and my cell phone in case an emergency required my immediate return to our shelter. I wiped the car door handle and the area around it, all parts of the outside of the door that any WOBR might have touched with his or her disease ridden hands (or gloves) when trying to break into my car.  (WOBRS is the acronym mnemonic I invented to remember the grains we cannot eat during Passover week: Wheat, Oats, Barley, Rye and Spelt. There are other ways to put those letters in sporty sequence, but I liked WOBRS. WOBRS is what Wobbin Hood’s men are when they catch that wotten wich willain, Elmer Fudd, and steal all his woot. So WOBR is how that acronym mnemonic appears when it is not Spelt right.)
	
	Let us take a brief hiatus from the train of thought to consider that theoretical WOBR. Anyone either desperate, opportunistic or rakingly stupid enough to choose this particular time to break into parked cars has to have a distinct and diagnosable psychological profile. Now. When venturing forth from his or her house, leaving the rest of the family safely sheltering in place, does our anti-hero suit up with mask and gloves, carrying a supply of sanitary wipes along in a handy pocket? Or does the psychology of such a WOBR go along with recklessness, a delusion of immunity or worse?  "Worse," would be the WOBR has tested positive for Covid-19, or has not been tested however, is showing symptoms and ambulatory, knowingly sets out purposefully to smear his or her actively viral imprimatur on the target population. In that case, our anti-hero would go out unmasked (and interesting twist for a WOBR) and ungloved. But otherwise — barring such malicious behavior, there is something ironic or amusing about a WOBR being fastidious, careful to disinfect the car door handle — perhaps the steering wheel, the glove compartment which gets completely sifted for valuables. Then what does our WOBR do with whatever booty he or she collects from all us persons who are sheltering in place while being WOBBED? Hot soapy water, disinfectant, bringing home the valuables, but conscientiously leaving it all outside the house for a few days to ensure that any pathogens have long since croaked. And during that time, while the proceeds are de-contaminating themselves, it would be only fair that the kind of person whose M.O. is stealing Christmas presents from front porches and trunks of cars, swipes our anti-hero WOBR’s hard earned loot. So it goes. No one ever gets to bring the stolen property inside and certainly it’s hard nowadays, with the social distancing and all, to sell it to a fence or a pawn shop. Not a lot of room for organized or disorganized crime during the Covid-19 anti-festival. 

	So it is that I realize I didn’t really tell you what was going on here.  Brief briefing: My mom had her 100th birthday in March. We were going to have an open house, had sent out the invitations, but then we had to send out uninvitations shortly afterwards. I sent home my mom’s housekeeper, the house organizer who spells me a few hours a week so I can rush out and do shopping then come dashing back. I don’t leave my mom alone, just in case there is an emergency. There have been enough of them in the past to train me. I know what you’re thinking when you hear she’s 100:  shriveled person in a wheelchair.  Not so.  She forgets her cane. She still does her own taxes. She’s not lost one marble in that sharp brain of hers. Her sense of humor is intact. She reads, argues (a whole lot), disagrees with the newspaper and is very much present. But she has lost about 5 inches and has some underlying health issues that put us in the highest risk group you might imagine.  I do all the cooking and actually should be making her lunch soon.  

	The thing is: I’m IT.  It’s terrifying really.  If anything should happen to me, the whole house of cards tumbles down. Then who would take care of my mother, and who would talk Meyshe down from a ledge when he reads the latest headline, or takes the latest poll a bit too teeth grindingly serious?  

	So we’re here, the three of us, my mom, Meyshe and I, sheltering in this place.  I’m trying to take care of myself. That’s what everyone tells me to do.  But every time someone tells me that, all I can think is: WHAT? One more person to take care of???!!!  It’s been so long since we had outside contact that I feel us isolated in our little island floating off on our own, loosed from the mainland, free to invent our shaky truths.

	Folks, write in, if only to check the box that you’re okay.  We want to know how everyone is doing.


Love,


Tobie





Variety is the spice of life.  Lack of variety is the spouse of life.   THS


Tobie Shapiro
mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net <mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net>