What would Lewis Grizzard say?
I’ ve decided the pandemic is many things. I find it tragic, catastrophic, outrageous, inconvenient and annoying. The tragic element of the pandemic is the monumental number of people who have died from the awful affliction of COVID-19. The pandemic has been catastrophic because of the economic impact, which was comprised of job loss and closed businesses. Our lives are inconvenienced by the pandemic because any and every possible activity we could ever dream up must be canceled.
Those of you who regularly read my column know that I like to write about friends, family and great people and, in the process, inspire joy and optimism. Over and again I have stated that if we look for joy we will find it. However, the pandemic has made it difficult for us to find joy in our lives. Please be assured I take the pandemic very seriously. COVID-19 is nothing to fool with. Nevertheless, I like to always maintain a sense of humor even in the face of difficulties like a pandemic.
You can never go wrong with a good story. Lewis Grizzard knew that better than anyone. I have wondered many times since the onset of the pandemic, what would Lewis have to say about it? I’m sure he’d entertain us with hilarious and often true stories regarding the pandemic. Stories like the one my friend told me.
As you may recall, on March 16, 2020, the shelter in place order was implemented. Not long after that my friend told me a story about her son. I thought it was the most outrageous story ever and she said, “I couldn’t make this up.”
The story goes that one day last April, my friend’s son was at the store. He shops frequently at that particular store and so the store clerk knows him. When he walked in the store he noticed the very strong odor of disinfectant and a woman with a can of disinfectant in her hand. Every time she picked up an item from the shelf, she sprayed it to death with disinfectant. Subsequently, at the checkout counter, every time the clerk picked up an item to ring it up, the lady sprayed the clerk with disinfectant.
The woman probably purchased eight items and she continued to spray the store clerk. When the clerk was through ringing up all the items, the woman turned around and sprayed disinfectant on my friend’s son! A lot of disinfectant! Of course he told the woman to stop spraying him. The woman then said, “Well my family has a lot of health problems and I do not want them to get the virus.”
My friend’s son wasn’t sure what to say to that, but his family has some serious health problems as well and he is not running around a store spraying store clerks and total strangers with disinfectant.
This is, as I mentioned, a true story. Can’t you just hear Lewis telling this story? He would probably have provided a description of that nut-bar customer. I think it would go like this: “The woman had frizzy, blonde hair and no makeup. She was probably a smoker because she had a lot of lines around her mouth and her whole face was real wrinkled. She had on real short shorts and a T-shirt and flip flops. She was real skinny and had so many tattoos, you don’t even know! She was a real smart aleck. Her parents were probably idiots.”
Lewis and masks
I think Lewis would’ve found it annoying having to wear a mask. He’d probably say, “I know we have to wear a mask to protect each other from COVID-19. But how can people see my handsome face if half of it is covered up with a mask?” He might also say, “The other night when I got home, I was wearing a mask and Catfish growled at me. He didn’t recognize me and wouldn’t let me in the door. When I took the mask off, he wagged his tail and let me in the door. Now I just can not be terrorizing Catfish by having to wear a mask!”
He made us laugh
Lewis made us laugh and he gave great advice. He once said if you are in a town you’ve never been to, and you are looking for a good restaurant, the best place to eat is always a hole-in-the wall. Lewis gave us advice we can use and good stories as well. You can never go wrong with that.