Today my plan was to write more about what happened in London regarding the emerging Ice-10 tempest collapsed. Fate turned against me. On Monday, my trusty, albeit bitchy, amanuensis, mike, tested positive for COVID or what he calls Trumps Plague.  Despite having the vaccination and the recommended boosters, mike got sick.  His symptoms expanded even as he started taking Paxlovid.  Imagine my fear.  If he dies, I’ll have to endure grief.  Perhaps just as bad, I’ll have to replace him during a labour shortage. 

Mike, even a potential doorstep of doom, managed to see an upside.  As he told me, he was living through one of the great public health catastrophes of the 21^st century.  Was he a man who would wish to miss a chance to complain about the fools responsible for this virus’s spread?  The health gods had enabled him to speak authoritatively of the symptoms of a moderate case of Trump’s Plague: joint pain, stuffy nose, headache, sore throat, cough, discomfort breathing, and a memorable episode of diarrhea. 

He felt cross with the cranks whose opposition to mandatory public health measures to save small-brained people like themselves had caused many conscientious people to contract Trump’s Plague.  The unvaccinated were a primary vector of disease.

Before long, I was getting a lecture on how morons handle risk. 

If you know mike, he likes examples.  Imagine two privates, PVT Strack and PVT Sad Sack. Every generation has an abundance of stupid, reckless Sad Sacks who shun measures to reduce risk.  Sad Sacks hate motorcycle helmet law.  To Sad Sacks, seatbelts are an assault on their liberty.  OSHA rules are the infallible mark of a nanny state. In the Army, divisions of Sad Sacks in Vietnam disdained flak jackets or in Iraq shells.  It’s a miracle Sad Sacs don’t prefer to march into battle barefoot and as naked as the day they were born.  Mike invited me to imagine Tucker Snarlson defending barefooted Sad Sacks as an elite in which the spirit of Valley Forge lived.

PVT Stracks on the other hand took sensible precautions. They believed anybody less likely to die if shot in the chest wearing a shell than if you were not wearing one.  All Stracks would view barefoot soldiering as lunacy, not a restoration of the Spirit of Valley Forge

As you can guess, mike thought Sad Sacks had strong mooch tendencies.  When their own addiction to folly led to disability, they wished others to compensate them.  Employment at the VA made mike the VA made mooch enablement a specialty practice.  Stracks often had no idea that they could obtain for service-connected injuries.  Sad Sacks see all infirmities of age as service-connected, and even have networks pandering to disability applicants too dim to make a case for disability on their own.

As he spoke about Sad Sacks, I wanted to rush off to assure myself that no Sad Sacks were stealing my growing stash of Krugerrands.  By today, mike began to forecast a metastasizing army of Sad Sacks, pressing for disability payments for having had COVID, because any right-thinking person should see that COVID causes PTSD or such horrendous disabilities as slow COVID, not to mention the vast range of crippling drug addictions that “self-treatment” of post-COVID symptoms causes.

Like many geezers, when mike got going on the topic of loafing bloodsuckers, it didn’t take him long to imperil his own health. 

Mike went on to tell me that his experience of Trump’s Plague would make it easier for him to ignore Sad Sacks on this topic with a clean conscience.  Let us never forget that a misfortune like Trump’s Plague is not an injustice.

By this mike meant that he was not owed anything if, say, the disease killed him.  As my servant, I was not onboard with that bit of philosophy.  I spend years bringing a servant up to stuff and then he dies because of some “misfortune” and I get nothing?  What next, am I to spend my Krugerrands insuring my servants?  What’s government for?

Anyway, the Plaxovid seems to have worked.  Mike must have a few more decent work years in him. That’s the main thing.  Let’s hope he doesn’t turn into a Sad Sack and demand more time off from taking my dictation.  Using Roberta was too unfamiliar.  I’ve got an artistic temperament.  I thrive when assisted by no-maintenance servants.