Housebound - Day… Jesus What F-ing Day Is It Now??

I went running today. Not from the roving gangs of looters; that comes later. Just for exercise. 

If there wasn’t a shortage of ventilators, I would claim one. 

I don’t run. Repeat: I. Don’t. Run. Biking, skiing, walking briskly to beat a thunderstorm: yes. I do those things. But Covfefe--sorry, Covid--has made us do strange things. My super-fit high-school-age daughter (whose middle name might as well be: “I can’t, I have crew”) has been pushing me to join her on her conditioning runs. I finally relented. First thing in the morning (read: 11am) we set out on the river trail.

Do people require tape measures to mark off six feet of distance? Jesus. 

The running went… slowly. 

The old people on walkers were going faster than I was. The freight train filled with fracked oil crept past me. Somehow the stationary fishermen beat me. 

Folks, let me state the obvious: now is not the time to be gasping for breath and coughing up a lung in public. (Though admittedly it did cause people to adhere to the six-foot limit.)

I’ll just chalk up my sad performance to the high viral load I’m probably carrying.

I got the call this afternoon. My office is locking all the doors to the building tonight at 8pm. In fact, to the entire campus. Universities are apparently not life-sustaining businesses. (Much of the faculty will be shocked.) It's now or never to go and rescue as many office plants and steal as many pens and Post It Notes as I can. (Kidding. Those are probably contaminated.) 

Today, March 20, as I write this, it is 80 degrees and humid in Philadelphia. 

Just a gentle reminder, dear reader, of the other existential crisis. 

When’s the $1 Trillion for that arriving? Soon, right?


--Josh Piven