Don’t be concerned. You may safely remove your facemask while reading this column. I’ve had my flu shot and COVID booster. I’m covered for malaria, leprosy, polio, trench foot, St. Vitus Dance, hoof and mouth, bubonic plague, and crabgrass, so no worries. So far, no matter what Ted Cruz, Tucker Carlson, or Candace Owens say (Owens believes we should invade Australia because it’s a police state imposing pandemic lockdowns on people against their will), I have no adverse COVID booster side effects, such as an extra limb or appendage growing out of my personal body other than those sprouting before the pandemic began. Although it is true most COVID victims recover without suffering the side effect of death, many of those recovered are having memory problems months later.
Speaking of COVID side effects, all our favorite goods, Chinese and otherwise, are floating around, melting, rotting and otherwise self-destructing in cargo containers on cargo ships off the Coast in the Pacific because the pandemic depleted the number of employees available to unload them. And even if the ships could be unloaded, there aren’t enough truck drivers to haul the stuff to where it needs to go. Looks like we’ll be fighting for toilet paper again.
Speaking of toilet paper and Chinese goods (nice segue), did you know toilet paper was invented by the Chinese? (If the subject of toilet paper is distasteful to you, please cover your eyes as you read this section.) It was just after they invented gunpowder, because they found tubes containing gunpowder for bathroom use were depleting the number of members in the royalty, who were the only ones who could afford them, due to the fact that after being lighted, the tubes only could be used once.
The Emperor of the Ming Dynasty solved the problem and had toilet paper made into two-foot by three-foot sheets. He must have eaten a lot. Modern toilet paper was invented by Joseph Gayetty in 1857. Before that, Western civilizations used things such as leavers, sticks, small forest creatures, mushrooms, stones, cloth. Out on the range, cowboys used barbed wire, which resulted in many impacted and constipated cowboys. They preferred to empty their bowels as infrequently as possible. If you saw Dances with Wolves, you know that soldiers out on the prairie used pages from Kevin Costner’s diary.
The Scott Paper Company brought toilet paper to the masses, developing perforated sheets in 1890 by having employees, at various intervals, run over the long paper strips. This manufacturing process was short-lived, however, due to the ragged perforation it produced on the paper and the lack of room in bathroom stalls for two urgent callings at the same time.
You may uncover your eyes now. I’m finished with the toilet paper.
Apparently there’s a full moon out over Texas and it’s shining 24/7 based on the weirdness going on there. First (well, really not first; Texas has been weird for a long time), there’s that bounty offer of 10 grand for ratting on your neighbors (the Nazis did it better…they got people to do it for nothing) if any one of them offered help to a female-type person considering and abortion. Then there was the Texas school board that stated children should be taught alternate views of the Holocaust. I guess they feel Adolph and his fun-loving minions got an undeserved bad reputation for killing millions of Jewish people and their side deserved equal time to have their case presented. I suppose these Texans soon will be joining those who believe the January 6th assault on the Capitol was a peaceful demonstration by tourists or that it and the Holocaust never happened. Turn up the gaslights. George Orwell must be spinning in his grave.
Last, but not least, except maybe in I.Q. points, there’s Trump boy, representative Louie Gohmert, who actually sued U.S. vice president Mike Pence because, Gohmert said Pence had the power to overturn the election to select anybody he wanted and he didn’t use his power to overturn it and select Trump. Big surprise. His lawsuit failed. Now, really last, are students being suspended because of the length of their hair? Shades of the 1960s all over again.
Those nutty Texans never fail to amuse.