Is anybody else tired of every Negative Nancy and Debbie Downer coming out of the woodwork to try and bury us with depressing coronavirus news? I am currently down in the dumps myself given some recent Penn State football news. And it got me thinking. For the past 5 months, every major news source has sat around and intentionally fed us shitty sob stories. “Things are never going to be the same.” “The new normal.” “Check out this death toll from today.” “Sports shouldn’t be played until 2022.” I’m so tired of seeing people like Darren Rovell and Nicole Auerbach tweet out the most pessimistic shit they can get their hands on.
Iowa announces that its men’s basketball team has paused workouts for 14 days after two student-athletes tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday.
— Nicole Auerbach 😷 (@NicoleAuerbach) July 28, 2020
An Indiana offensive lineman whose last tweet is that he wouldn’t live in fear of Covid-19 and his mother who now prays he doesn’t have permanent heart damage... pic.twitter.com/OwpvVurKpd
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) August 3, 2020
Anything for those retweets baby!! Even if that means pretending to care about Iowa basketball in July or trying to humiliate an Indiana football player for getting sick.
Just today I was thinking to myself that I would literally pay money for a college football podcast to talk to me about college football. As much as I enjoy sports journalists who have 0.0% knowledge or familiarity with epidemiology tell me about their outlooks during the upcoming flu season, I kind of want to hear about sports. Weird concept. “BUT THAT’S ALL WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT.” Is it really? Because last summer this virus didn’t exist and you somehow managed to produce a podcast about college football. Read off the goddam rosters for all I care I would just love to hear about something other than bullshit from self-appointed experts. Sidenote: Self-appointed expert is hands down my favorite phrase on this earth.
But the point of this blog wasn’t to bitch about “that idiot that I can’t stand Darren Rovell” (- Dana White). The point of this blog is to shed some light on the GOOD things that have come from or will come from the rona. Blessings in disguise if you will. So put on your happy faces. I’m going to rip off 5 things in no particular order that are an improvement to your every day life and are directly tied to this ongoing madness.
1. Wearing a Mask Has Become Socially Acceptable
Why was this not a thing before? I guess countries like South Korea and Japan do this shit on a regular basis as a courtesy to their elders. Who is going to argue with that recent-grad idiot Kyle coming into your office wearing a mask after getting the sniffles during his weekend bender? I don’t want to get sick at all, and I sure as shit don’t want to get sick during my mandatory presence at work. Maybe Kyle is a bad example because if you think you are sick you shouldn’t be going into the office in the first place. And realistically assholes like Kyle don’t have the courtesy to do this sort of thing.
But as a hypothetical – let’s say you are sick and you have to walk into CVS to buy some ingredients for nyquil bombs. Pre-COVID you probably walk into CVS and hold the door for some 90 year old woman on her way out. Then you laugh in the cashiers face after they ask you to round up to the nearest dollar in support of the “cats stuck in trees” fund. Post-COVID the only difference is you toss on a mask for 60 seconds and you may have just prevented giving two people the flu. And if you’re worried about getting a dirty look or having someone scoff at you…I have a suggestion: Try not giving a shit!
2. The College Football Playoff May Get Permanently Expanded to 8 Teams
Sorry, I veered back into college football. And just FYI at no point within the following paragraphs am I going to say “IF THE SEASON IS PLAYED.”
Long story short: COVID has caused all of these cfb teams to play conference-only schedules. It’s going to be impossible to pick the 4 best teams from 5 conferences that aren’t playing any games outside their own conference. These CFP committee people will have no choice but to expand the playoffs to include one team from each conference. If they are smart about it they’re going to expand it to 8 teams.
And regardless of this year’s circumstances, I could describe the current conference and playoff system to my 80 year old nana and I guarantee her response would be “why isn’t there enough spots for each conference?” Anyone with a brain and also Skip Bayless can see that the correct number of teams for the playoff is 8, always has been 8, and always will be 8. Let’s hope this is the year that proves that.
3. Working from Home
The idea that all of us need to lose sleep so that we can look half-ass presentable and sit in traffic before starting work is laughable. And let me be clear – I’m not saying you are more productive working at home by yourself than you are inside the office surrounded by coworkers. Anyone that claims that is lying to themselves. But certainly there is some sort of breakeven point where that productivity is cancelled out by all of the time/energy spent on the bullshit that comes with “going to work.”
At one point in time I used to drive through a tunnel on my way to and from work that cost a measly $4 EACH direction. I think I may have single-handedly paid for the construction of that tunnel by myself in the 4 years I spent doing that. Full disclosure I found some bullshit EZ pass plan and was able to reduce that cost, but the point still stands. That’s asinine for me to be forced to do that every day. Thankfully, I think COVID has shed some light on the benefits of having employees work from home. I’ll list some of them off from the top of my head. I also want to point out who the benefit actually benefits (employee vs. employer):
- People not dying in car crashes (win-win)
- Reduced travel expenses (win-win b/c employers can justify lower wages)
- Reduced dog sitting expenses (win-neutral b/c if employers try to justify lower wages with this that’s bullshit)
- Environmental benefits due to less transportation (win-win)
- Eliminate non-billable time spent preparing for work/commuting (win-win or win-neutral depending on how employee uses that extra time)
- Older folks in the office with nothing to do can’t distract you from getting shit done (win-win)
- Wearing a basketball jersey instead of a collared shirt (win-neutral unless my boss is a fan of Rondo then win-win)
- Checking espn.com 20 times a day instead of 10 (win-lose)
- No face-to-face interaction (lose-lose unless the employee hates their coworkers then it’s win-lose)
4. Getting Drunk Has Been Cheap
Do I miss going into a bar and having someone pour me beers while I sit on my ass and lose money gambling on sports? Yes.
Do I miss sitting down on a barstool on Saturday at noon knowing that I don’t have any responsibilities for the next 14 hours aka the greatest feeling in the world? Yes.
Do I miss ice cold draft beer? Yes.
Do I miss getting a $50 bar tab after ordering 7 drinks? No.
It really sucked for a while not being able to drink in public, and now it just kind of sucks because we’ve been drinking at outdoor breweries in 90° maryland heat. But what doesn’t suck is how cheap COVID has made the act of getting drunk. When I walk into the beer distributor now I just pick out the most expensive shit I can find. That internal thought always goes off in my head – “who cares this is still cheaper than it would have been at the bar.” Maybe this is a personal problem (solution?), but I gotta say my wallet has been heavier and it’s not due to lack of consumption.
5. Things That No One Cared About Are Cool Again
I feel like there’s a whole bunch of things that nobody gave a shit about pre-COVID that have turned into cool activities. Again, random list off the top of my head:
- Golf
- Puzzles
- Making bread
- Making iced coffee because hot coffee sucks
- Hanging out with your loved ones
- Working out
- Sleeping
There you have it. I feel like this was kind of a cheesy blog. But allow me to refer back to those people worried about getting made fun of for their mask and say ‘who gives a shit.’ Like I said earlier there is entirely too much negativity being spewed around right now. So this is me trying to combat some of it. And as always I’m only half kidding when I write this stuff. But those 5 things are undeniably good things that have been undeniably strengthened or born out of COVID times.