This pandemic has shown us the true faces of humanity. One the one hand , you have saints like Drew Brees who donated five million dollars to feed the hungry of New Orleans, and the front-line workers who risk their lives in hospitals. On the other hand, you have the larger group: the thieves, hoarders, and scammers. The video that disgusted me was the one of two women punching it out at the store over a package of toilet paper. It’s toilet paper, ladies! Are you really going to risk life and limb over toilet paper? At a time when thousands are dying, is there anything less essential than toilet paper? You couldn’t stop, and think of an alternative to fighting over a roll of thin paper that you’re only going to soil and flush?

My in-laws had an alternative during the Great Depression when they bought food rather than toilet paper. They used the pages of the Sears Christmas catalogue. So many alternatives come to mind if you’d just stop and think. That’s the problem. Everyone’s in panic mode. No one stops to think. People are trapped at home, glued to the news that claims we’re all going to die.

We all die. The news just sells more stories if they can sensationalize it. Who wants to hear about another inner-city murder when you can put an unknown English doctor/hack on TV who’ll announce he believes 2.2 million Americans will die from this virus. Now that sells, news!

I often differ with Trump, but I agree with him on one thing. America is great. I’ve lived outside the country, and had surgery in in a third-world hospital, Mexico. Americans will get through this. Other countries don’t have our education, wealth, infrastructure, or government. In the time I spent in Mexico City, the police, military, and government worked based on corruption and bribery. It was every man for himself. Their homeless were in the millions. Most of their population lives in despicable conditions compared to American standards. Mexico City had twenty-million people cramped together closer than New York City. Those people are going to die, because they don’t have the hospitals or doctors. I can’t imagine what it’s like in India. Now I’m straying from my point about toilet paper. What is the deadly necessity of toilet paper where women will fight over it, when they wouldn’t share with their children?

There is no instinctive need to wipe our asses with paper like there is to eat and drink. We are not born with the desire, the compulsive need, to cover ourselves with a diaper and wash away any excessive “chips’. In fact, my aunt often told the stories of my cousin finger-painting her walls with her shit as a baby. The practice had to be punished out of her, so it isn’t instinctive to be clean or to not play with our shit. That behavior had to have developed out of social norms. So when did wiping one’s ass begin?

Ironically, cleansing one’s ass with paper began in Imperial China. I say ironic because the illness that began this toilet paper panic allegedly began in China. Previous to that, most medieval practices involved defecation in a stream, and using one’s hand to clean oneself. That same practice could be used today in the shower if the absolute need arose. If that’s still to disgusting for the hoarders, why not use some of the rubber gloves you’re hoarding. Then you have all the hand ssnitizer cramming your shelves. Other solutions: I’ve read of those in old England using a well-downed goose neck, or the Romans who used a sponge on a stick, keeping the sponge in a pail of vinegar. Our elders used rags, wool, leaves, and hemp. Ancient Jews carried sacks of small peoples. There’s always the option chosen by our female Alaskan malamute, Cala, when she felt “soiled”. Having no hands, she’d do a “sit and spin” on the street. Still not an option? Try dryer sheets. Your ass will smell dryer fresh and be wrinkle free. Thanks, retired engineer, Jane Porterfield.

This an age when we’re so lazy we let he people on a television tell us when we’re supposed to laugh at the jokes of at a shitty sitcom, and which political leader to follow, whom to hate. So it may be hard to expect people to stop, think, and control their primal rage over not getting what they want this instant. But that’s what needs to happen in these difficult times.

I’m not a religious person, but there was a phrase fad a few years ago that makes perfect sense right now. When you feel the need to do something stupid like punch someone out over a toilet paper roll, stop, take a few deep breaths, and ask yourself, “What would Jesus do?” If you’re the lazy type, just remember:” W.W.J.D” By the time you remember all that, the anger will pass.