CONSOLATIONS (HOWEVER GRIM) FROM THE CURRENT COVID-19 PANDEMIC

--You might find it grimly amusing to help produce a new documentary movie about the role of the spitball in professional baseball. This is one way to find an outlet for your own very justifiable and very rational COVID-19-related saliva anxieties.


---You could purchase an old-fashioned spittoon and have it installed inside your home. You could then ask each of your relatives living with you to please aim any and all of their spit into that stylish urn in your living room. "And please focus the path of your spit, when you do spit, so that no droplets of moisture go anywhere outside of that spittoon," you could politely ask each of your relatives who are living with you.

---You could write a novel about a 21st Century Plague so severe that each and every day is a struggle to survive, and what's more, aliens from outer space have determined that a global pandemic on Earth comprises an "ideal opportunity for our forces to conquer those earthlings and control that entire planet." So the daily struggle to survive that human beings are facing is made all the more difficult by the presence of unidentified flying objects landing all over this planet in preparation for an alien conquest of all of human civilization.

---You are far less likely to get infected with any sexually-transmitted disease or to sustain any unwanted pregnancy during the pandemic. That's primarily because you are far less likely to have any form of sexual contact with anyone throughout the entire remainder of the pandemic---no matter how many additional months or years that proves to be.

--You could create a recipe for a tasty dessert treat or snack that contains the word "Spit" or "Saliva." This might allow you and your family to smile whenever you eat that dessert or snack inside your own home.

---No one is going to call you prudish for being celibate.

---The pandemic gives you plenty of opportunities for reflecting on whether you have enough strictly-platonic and strictly-personal friends in your own life. If you get zero phone calls from persons who might make a friendly phone call to you when you are alone inside your bolt-locked and fully-secured private residence, this is a reminder that you might want to make some new friends as soon as the COVID-19 pandemic is over.

---You have more incentive for founding and joining a Celibate Americans' Rights Group, and for posting an online chart about tangible advantages from a celibate lifestyle including no need for an abortion and the great confidence you have that even if a crime investigator were to order DNA testing on your groin area, you yourself would never be implicated in any way.

--You can pursue online research to identify a musical-recordings anthology album that exclusively contains musical selections about the joy of platonic or non-sexual love. 


---You can pursue some factual research to find out how expensive it would be for you to host a Virtual Meeting for a favorite civic group of yours, such as "Austin Crime-Deterrence-Brainstormers", in which each of the members of your group can then politely comment at that meeting about their own favorite theory to explain why so many of the single adult persons in Austin cite smoking marijuana as their "favorite pastime".

---You can revitalize yourself by pledging on paper to eat more vegetables and fruits each and every day for the entire remaining decades of your life.

---You could ask an honorable architect to design an indoor racquetball court annex to your home. You can then practice hitting solo shots with your racquetball without any score being kept since you will, of course, be playing alone on your court throughout the remainder of the current pandemic.

--You have a golden opportunity inside your home to attempt to generate as many wise sayings and clever quotations of your own that might someday earn you an entry in a "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations" reference book. One such quote might be: "I'm Pondering the Pandemic", with some social historian in the year 2050 possibly wanting to quote you for having authored that pithy observation.

---Try to imagine what the headline in a newspaper would state if your own life were to suddenly turn into an obituary item for the local news media. If you don't like the expected content of that headline, consider this an incentive for pursuing creative projects that emphasize your own priorities, strongest affinities, and favorite philanthropic causes. Then maybe 40 years from today, you will be pleased to sense while still alive that the news media might be more fair to you in their expected headlines, since they had had 40 additional years to develop more insight about what your accomplishments and priorities as a human being have been.

---Take pride in your keen insight that veterinarians who specialize in serving pet dogs are probably the happiest of all the medical physicians during the current pandemic. Those veterinarians have no fear of their patients, as other doctors do during the current crisis.

---You aren't facing as many hosts in restaurants who ask you "Just one?" after you request to be seated. The hosts these days are savvy about the advisability of "just one" dining, from a social-distancing standpoint.

---You have more reasons for smiling at your pet dog inside your home. You need to exercise your smile muscles in your face, and the world outside of your home is NOT conducive to smiling during this medical-crisis period. So if you smile at your pet dog, at least you can enjoy the special satisfaction from smiling without any increased risk of contracting COVID-19 resulting from your smile.

---You don't have to worry about explaining why you are unable to attend the most recent marijuana party that some host in your city is completely sure would help you to mellow out or chill, as he might put it.

---You have increased incentive for overcoming allergies. If you were to sneeze in public because of your allergies, someone might mistake you for a COVID-19 patient and react in a very hysterical or irate manner.

---You can ask yourself what the Bible has to say about pandemics, and you can focus your Bible studies inside your home to those particular passages.

--Each day of the year update your current list of each of the persons you know in your strictly-personal life who actually practice proper social distancing or emphasize that in their comments to you on the telephone about their own conduct. Each week, you may be able to add at least one new name to your list---and that should help you to feel optimistic about life and about your own future.

---You can dye your hair to prove to yourself that you are still alive and still young at heart.

---If someone calls you and asks you out on a romantic date, you can politely reply on the phone that unfortunately, medical experts advise against dating during the current pandemic, but that you appreciate their kind interest in yourself.

---You have more incentive for studying how to make video phone calls more intriguing than at present. You can then use the knowledge you gleaned from that to spend money on pursuing video phone calls with friends, relatives, and prospective eventual dating partners as a new "favorite pastime" for yourself inside your home.

---You can take dozens of additional Selfie personal photos of yourself that add creative variety to the poses you have previously struck for Selfies.

---You have more free time available to study recipes for broccoli dishes that are low in saturated fat, low in sodium, and actually delicious to eat.

---You have more opportunities for reflecting on your own philosophy of human identity, and on why your own outlook differs dramatically from that of 99 percent or more of the single persons in the city or county or metro area or state where you reside.

---You can resolve to master the preparation and cooking of five new culinary dishes that are heart-healthy, delicious, and conducive to increased creative medical longevity for yourself.

---Make a list of celibate persons you admire, Queen Elizabeth I of England possibly among them you imagine, and then jot down points you admire about each of those famous celibate persons.

---Identify which medical association or medical society you regard as being the most noble, and then make a $10 donation to that group. This will boost your own morale during the current medical crisis.

--You have more reasons for making strictly personal phone calls to anyone you like who also has a pleasant phone voice and good telephone manners.

--You have more opportunities for savoring the telephone conversation dialogues of life, since absolutely nothing else can possibly occur from any of your human relationships during the current pandemic.

---You are not under any social pressure to make any additional friends. Additional friends could translate into saliva flying toward your face.

---You can pursue online research about likable misanthropes such as American comedian W.C. Fields who are famous for distrusting other human beings. Your own punch line will always be that there is no one anywhere on this planet whom you wouldn't want to have at least six feet of distance from at all times.

--You have more opportunities for hugging your pet dog inside your home and posting photos of yourself hugging your pet dog on social media. 

---Rejoice in the saliva that your pet dog releases when he or she kisses you, since you have been advised by your doctor that your dog's kisses will not harm your own medical health.

---You can always upgrade if your current pet dog is too tiny to be a good hugging dog for you. Investing in a better pet dog for hugging pursuits inside your home might be good for your emotional health and medical health during the pandemic.

---Since you are spending more time hugging your pet dog, you have a golden opportunity to take a public stand on social media in which you fervently oppose bestiality and human cruelty toward animals.

--- You don't have to worry about anyone seeing your hairlip, since your mouth is completely covered by the mask.

---You are less likely to be involved in a motor-vehicle accident, since there are a lot fewer cars on the road during the pandemic.

---You save money from not having to buy or wear any lipstick. You are guaranteed of ZERO romantic life throughout the remainder of this pandemic, so lipstick is completely irrelevant to your life of today.

---You can boost your morale by jotting down a list of each of the potentially-fatal diseases you don't currently have.

---You have increased incentive for staying away from fist-fights.

---You have more opportunities for writing love letters that don't refer to your ever being within six feet of the person you love.

---You can study a history of the Plague from Medieval Europe and be grateful for modern medicine giving you a better chance at surviving the current pandemic.

---You have increased incentive for writing your memoirs in two weeks or less.

---You can see it all as an invitation to become an existentialist philosopher on your own terms. Cooking one egg in a pan and eating it: that is one existential triumph for you inside your kitchen every morning. You know it has to be only one egg per day, because you have read online from medical experts at Harvard Medical School and possibly also Nutrition Action newsletter that no more than one egg per day will boost your medical health and actually be good for your heart and cardiovascular system.

---If you had a bad habit in the past of standing too close to other people, the current pandemic is giving you plenty of incentive for maintaining at least six feet of distance between yourself and all other persons at all times.

---If you wear a mask at all times and you practice social distancing at all times and you wash your hands frequently, you identify yourself as being among the most honorable people in your city. You might even qualify for a special award, such as, "Most Diligent Mask-Wearer of the Week" if any such award and cash prize are being conferred on residents exhibiting the most impressive COVID-19-related valor.

--If new acquaintances you encounter for the first time ever at public places like the design or color on the mask you're wearing, this makes for a good conversation starter. But remember to keep your conversation as brief as possible, since you don't want to risk releasing saliva or being subjected to someone else's saliva.

--If you sense that the United States may be at risk of sustaining a financial depression, you can remind yourself that this is very familiar territory, since you heard all about the Great Depression from older relatives of yours during your childhood. Maybe you could pursue a Comparative Depressions cultural study that might enable you to earn a PhD in Economics, assuming that you currently have a Master's Degree in Economics. 

--You have more incentive for rewarding your pet dog with gourmet dog treat biscuits. Your pet dog is truly your best friend during this period. This is obvious to you because no matter how many times your pet dog kisses you, he will never prove to be a fatal attraction for you. You have no need to get your pet dog tested for COVID-19, since you already know your pet dog is disease-free from that very crucial standpoint.

---You are being reminded to stay focused on the present and very near future, which spares you from worrying about such distant time periods into the future as one year from now or two years from now.

---You have the opportunity to invent a new device that allows Americans to eat a meal without any saliva coming out of their mouth. Your invention could be a bit like what dentists offer to patients when they ask them to release their saliva into a suction-cup tool that removes the saliva with their mouth closed. Your invention will go well with a liquid diet plan you could then offer as an "alternative lifestyle" option during the current COVID-19 crisis.

---You might qualify to escort a service dog around town that will immediately let you know if that dog detects the COVID-19 virus on anyone you encounter throughout each day. This is assuming, of course, that you will be permitted by the government to qualify to own a service dog with that one specific purpose.