The paper chase.

The whole world's going batty, and we don't even know if it's appropriate or not.

I'm not even talking about the bizarre and audacious lies of the Chinese, that the so-obvious-it's-painful Chinese Wuhan flu did not originate in CHINA, WHERE IT ORIGINATED, as they have lied about everything else regarding this thing. Nor do I mean the wacky attempt by China's Western bootlickers to back them up. That stuff is beyond gaslighting and into sad little comedy, like the toddler who lies about taking your Perugina when he's holding the chocolate in his hand and is covered with the stuff, except instead of Perugina he's holding a loaded gun, and instead of chocolate it's blood.

Do not let them fool you.

No, I'm talking about weird and/or surprising choices by the people in our own country.

Here's a couple of things that have struck me in the last few days, and have probably struck you as well, summed up briefly:

1) It's kind of crazy that sports leagues, Broadway shows, science and medical conferences, comic cons, and concerts have all shut down. That pretty much covers all the kids I knew in high school. The one that made me smile was Celine Dion putting the "Courage World Tour" on hold -- whether it's smart or not, it doesn't look good to cancel something called "Courage" out of "Fear."

2) This TP buying has turned into a cascade of crazy. First it was the panic buyers, who always run for toilet paper when a storm is coming. But it was so bad this time that less high-strung types were thinking, I have enough Angel Soft for the week, but with all these crazy people clearing the shelves, by the time I need more there will be none. Better get some! Not like it goes stale. And thus, the Great Toilet Paper Buy of 2020, which makes us look like lunatics, because toilet paper cannot protect anyone against the coronavirus.

I wish I had come up with this one; I salute the person who did.

3) Our schools hardly got any snow days this winter, but they're about to make up for it in spades. They closed yesterday, events are being canceled, and they will probably close down for at least a couple of weeks. It's been easier to shut off the colleges, whose spring break seems to come earlier, and whose students can all be expected to have computers and Internet access for remote learning.

4) Even worse, churches are closing, and here we are in Lent. The Catholic churches here have not thrown in the towel, unlike the churches in Rome (!!!!!) and France, but our local Methodist and Presbyterian churches have closed down for a couple of weeks. Not sure about the local Temples and the Lutherans.

5) Offices closing -- this is not as big a deal as it once was, again because so many people in office jobs can work from home now. I sat in remotely on a meeting for a company, a publisher for whom I do freelance stuff. It was all instructions on how to log in to the system from home -- which I do anyway, so it wasn't useful to me, but I figured I'd check in and make sure there was nothing new. The funny thing is, I've been their lurker, the unseen sweatpants guy in the cave, proofing copy, and now they'll all be joining my sweatpants cave cult. Ha ha!

🏥🔬🔕⚠😷💀

What does this all mean? We hope nothing. We hope that there are no, or at least very few, more people getting sick from the coronavirus pandemic, and in a few weeks we look around at our piles of TP and laugh and say, "What were we thinking?"

Or maybe, "Thank God, this shows that our plague preparations work in some areas but could use help in others. We'll tune up the system and be in better shape if it happens again. Next time could be really bad."

Maybe the worst outcome would be, "What a load of crap! What a big nothingburger! What a waste of time and effort!"

I hope that doesn't happen. If people think this was never a big deal, no worse than a bad cold, then whole governments and the entire media become the shepherd boy who cried wolf.

It might be cynical fun to look at it that way, but think of this: In the original Aesop fable. after the shepherd boy is established as a liar, the wolf gets to pick off the sheep at his leisure. In this story, though, the sheep will be us.