Uncle Rufus on the Virus

Dear Cousin Cletus,

Wahl, it’s almost springtime here in the holler and the forsythia bushes and daffodils are sportin’ yellow blooms. Course, the sunshine and warm weather bring out the skunks. Highway D has one splattered on the road ever' couple miles.

I been readin’ in the county newspaper ‘bout that virus going ‘round that’s got ever’body worried. So far nobody here in the holler came down with it. I think it’s because we all eat at Girt’s Gas and Grub onct a week and wash our hands in the bathroom there. You ‘member, she has the old kind of roller towel on the wall. You crank out a new place to wipe yer hands on, and the old, wet place gets rolled up. Wahl, after usin’ that thang, we’re all of us immune to ‘bout ever’ germ that ever was.

I wonder why people in the big city think they have to hoard toilet paper. Guess they don’t know that Corona virus affects the other end of a body. They’d be better off buying lots of Kleenex to blow they noses.

And that stuff they call hand sanitizer? Cousin Festus in the big city wrote that people is buying all they is of the stuff. I wonder what they’ll do when this hullabaloo is over and there’s cases of the stuff sittin’ around their basement. Me? I just wash mah hands a lot with good ol’ lye soap. It’ll cure what ails ya, if it don’t take off yer hide.

Some more funny things is happenin’ in big cities. I saw a picture in the newspaper of people wearing hospital masks when they go out in public. Now, I could see them doin’ that if they’s walkin’ by Lem Grossbeak’s hog farm.

Mah grandson flew out to see me last week, and on the airplane he saw a young girl wearin’ one of them masks. She lowered it to pop some candy in her mouth—with the same hand she used to fasten her germy seatbelt—then slipped the mask back over her face. How dumb can people get?!

You know what I think, Cletus? I wouldn’t be surprised if some bigshots somewhar cooked this thang up to clear out their inventories in stores. Just think, if you was the CEO of a hand sanitizer or toilet paper business, you’d be chuckling all the way to the bank right now.

Wahl, it’s time to go feed mah chickens, so guess I’d better close this letter. Y’all come see me sometime. We’ll go down to Clem’s Gen’ral Store and get us some orange sodee pop.

Yours truly,

Cousin Rufus