By Lee Pitts
When the COVID pandemic first hit, I didn’t think it would last long. After all, it was made in China. But here it is almost Christmas, and I’m still living like a dog…all day long, I wander around the house looking for food, my wife has to keep telling me, “Down boy,” and I get all excited about going for a ride in the truck. This Christmas, I don’t want another stimulus check from our bankrupt government or another lecture by Dr. Fauci about washing my hands. Here is a list of what I do want this COVID Christmas:
• In my stocking, I want to find a lifetime supply of N95 masks and little bottles of Purell.
• I’d like to go outside again.
• I desperately need a year’s supply of toilet paper, the good stuff, not the paper that’s so thin you can see through it.
• If it’s not too much to ask, I’d like a haircut by a real barber.
• For once I’d like to be able to cough in public without being treated as if I’m a leper.
• I want all the kids to go back to school so they can suffer like I had to.
• I’d like permission to be able to touch my face again.
• I’d like to shop in real stores without having to buy everything from Amazon, thus making Jeff Bezos the world’s first trillionaire.
• I’m wishing I never have to hear the following words ever again: quarantine, PPE, Wuhan, pandemic, and most of all, “We’re all in this together.” The only time I want to hear the words self-i-so-late is if I’m running a few minutes behind schedule.
• I’d like to be able to go to a car show, an estate sale, a cattle show at the county fair, a community library sale, or a country-western concert without sitting six feet away from my wife.
• I’d like to feel safe when I take a free pen from the bank. After all, it’s the only way I have of getting more than a .05% return on my savings.
• All this stress is causing me to snack too much all day at home. It’s gotten so bad that the buttons on my shirt are social distancing themselves. That’s why I just want oversize hoodies without buttons for Christmas.
• I’d really like to shake someone’s hand again, maybe even hug them, instead of cracking knuckles or all this ridiculous rubbing elbows.
• If it’s not too much to ask for this Christmas, I’d like to be able to go into the grocery store without having to worry if some super-spreader had his hands all over the cans of Campbell’s double-noodle soup.
• I’m tired of standing in line and having people I don’t know breathe down my neck. So this Christmas, I’d like for someone to give me a 12-foot, two-by-four that I could attach to my belt buckle so I could swing it in a complete circle, thus assuring that everyone is keeping at least six feet away. If they aren’t, I’ll make them pay with a good thwack to their mid-section.
• I really wish that the pregnant emergency room nurse I met at the hospital remains healthy and that her baby is OK. Oh, I almost forgot, I hope Chris gets his job back at Olive Garden.
• I’d like for people to stop aiming those temperature guns at my forehead. One of these days, someone’s going to point one at a cop and he’ll return fire.
• In 2021, I’d like to be able to consider myself an “essential worker.”
• Please, I’d like a “China free” Christmas this year. If you can’t find anything that was made in the good old U.S.A., just send me the cash instead. So far, I think it’s still printed in America.
• I’d like to never have to wear a face mask ever again.
• The only time I want to hear the words “Corona task force” is if it’s in reference to six people drinking Mexican beer with a lime in it.
• The main thing I want this year for Christmas is a COVID-19 vaccine.
