As COVID cases begin spiking everywhere again, Cori Skolnick reports on the latest developments unfolding in Geezerville; everything’s cancelled (except Pickleball).

It was inevitable, wasn’t it? An outbreak amongst the oldies here.

Word of “several” COVID cases among the inhabitants of Geezerville arrived via an email cancelling the monthly Bocci Ball Tournament. There will be no Bocci while there is COVID lurking.

No precise info was provided about how many people have been struck down, but it is widely rumored that a certain group of Geezerville revelers returned ill from, of all things, a poker cruise. Apparently, the afflicted thought it was a superb idea to jump on board a sailing vessel bound for nowhere upon which they and all the other passengers sat for hours every day in tightly closed spaces, decidedly NOT six feet apart, and presumably breathing each other’s exhalations in and out, in and out, in and out. You get the picture.

Who could possibly think THAT was a great idea? (It would be the high stakes gamblers now, wouldn’t it?) I sure hope nobody croaks.

Oopsie daisy. Incoming message. Oh boy, Canasta has been cancelled, too.

I know a guy who knows a guy who knows somebody who works as a PR hack for one of the country’s largest healthcare concerns. If your job is to produce “spin” about all matters that are health-related for the medical industrial complex, you have access to volumes of scary data from all kinds of sources, including government-run search engines. My guy tells me that most of this is data the public never sees or hears about, and that’s a good thing. He tells me that if the general public knew about the half of everything out there that could kill us dead where we sit, we’d never get out of bed.

My guy tells me that most of this is data the public never sees or hears about, and that’s a good thing. He tells me that if the general public knew about the half of everything out there that could kill us dead where we sit, we’d never get out of bed.

For instance, two new variants of the current pandemic virus we call COVID-19 have been identified. (No, not those two—two other new ones.) He tells me that it is no longer the unvaccinated who are having a terrible time of it when ’Rona comes a calling. Folks—and plenty among the fully vaxxed and double boosted in the Geezer zone—are perishing again at an alarming rate. Oh well, I guess. Something’s going to kill you. Might as well take that cruise.

Oh, geezus, now they’re cancelling Corn Hole!

If you don’t know what this is, it’s a sort of bean bag toss wherein the tossers throw bean bags at a hole in raised plywood sheets that have been manufactured specifically for the game and placed horizontally at an optimum incline. There are elements of soccer, too, or maybe Foosball since there are two such inclined boards with holes to aim at. There are opposing teams comprised of two human beings willing to publicly debase themselves by taking a turn at depositing their bean bag from a distance of some yards away and directly into the opposite hole. Voilà! The Corn Hole. A score is kept.

I have to tell you, honestly, that I participated in this activity myself, but only once and only under duress (because Pablo was on my ass about being a snob). I lobbed my very first bean bag directly into the face of my unhappy opponent, and then, on my second throw, I “tossed” my bean bag securely onto the roof of the overhang. It took three geezers, a ladder, and a near catastrophe to recover said projectile. Believe me, nobody here in G-ville was upset when I retired from the game permanently.

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I scoff, but I have to tell you that Corn Hole is among the most popular activities here in Geezerville. Right up there with Pickleball*. And, truly, you haven’t lived ’til you’ve watched four otherwise relatively mature human beings engage in a lively competition that shares its name with (among other things) the “official activity of jails and prison showers.” (Don’t shoot the messenger. Look up the many profane and colorful definitions on Urban Dictionary.)

Half the fun to the loyal participants, I suppose, is the amusing repartee engaging non-stop double entendre. But now, thanks to the new surge in COVID cases, there will be none of that kind of frivolity this week. Whatever will the Corn Holers do on Friday night around the happy hour? One might presume they will decidedly NOT be happy.

Uh oh. Incoming. I tell you, just sitting at your desk monitoring the various messages is like keeping count on the fallen. Just this second, I hear of three confirmed COVID cases. Three more. And nary a mask in town. What the hell?

I have just three things to say about that. Actually, also, three more. One, thank god for the vaccine. Two, if you reside here, you are waaaaaaay too old to be a member of QAnon. That kind of bullshit is for the young and dumb. Remember when everybody you knew was attending EST? That was our “young and dumb.” We’re supposed to be wiser now. So, three, turn off Fox News, resign your membership in the Proud Boys—you ain’t no “boy”—get off 8chan and put on a fucking mask. You’ll be back to corn-holing in no time. Every single thinking human being is sick of your shit. This could have all been over by now.

*The Pickleballers? Those guys will NEVER cancel. Vladimir Putin would have to launch a nuclear attack on the Gaslamp District downtown to get the pickleballers to sack it. Just this second, as I type these words, Pablo heads out for a rousing league game (yes, these old fools are in a Pickleball league now). “Hey!” I’m yelling, “Where’s your mask?” One second before the back door slams shut, he yells back, “Not necessary! It’s outside!” Which is code for GFY.

So, thank god for the vaccine, Baby Jesus! And I’m not kidding. Not even a little.