Being directly related to a defenseless arboreal bear, I have a relatively evolved fear response. Predators, inclimate weather, skunks, nuclear proliferation, escalators, political tyranny, skunks, and hundreds of other threats or potential threats have, at some time or another, blipped upon my mental  threat matrix. My head is full of nervous hamsters, and an entire division of them are tasked with watching those monitors 24 hours a day like NORAD air-traffic controllers . They sit hunched over their stations with tight, anxious faces — alternating amphetamines, cigarettes, and low-carb Monster  in an unconscious dance —  their little paws  quivering lightly on the big red “Panic” button standing ready to raise the alarm.

                Sometimes, on my evening walks…

                NORAD Hamster (NH): “SKUNK!” [Button pressed. A claxon sounds.]

                Rational brain (RB), startled by the air raid siren: “what?”

                NH: “SIR! Incoming skunk! Directly ahead!”

                RB: “yeah? It’s a hundred feet away and it’s a baby.”

                NH: “But sir, how far can they shoot?!”

                RB: “I don’t know. Not a hundred feet.”

                NH: “Sir, forgive me, but I did not know you were a resident skunk expert.”

                RB: “Watch your tone, ensign.”

                NH: “I’m sorry, sir! But sir! It is still coming at us! Permission to change sidewalks!”

                Another Norad Hamster leans across the aisle and into the conversation, looking worried.

                NORAD Hamster 2: “DO NOT PANIC!!! THERE ARE CARS ON THIS ROAD!!”

                Rational Brain, looking left and right. “There’s no cars now.”

                NH2: “But there COULD be cars! You must be careful!”

                NH1: “Sir, the skunk is coming RIGHT AT US!! We must alter course now!”

                …this process goes on for some time. Eventually, I cross the street. Sometimes the skunk follows me, at which point several hamsters will need immediate psychiatric intervention for post traumatic stress. 

It’s exhausting to be koala kin.

                Anyway, I was out well ahead of the COVID thing. While the rest of the country was going merrily about its business doing who knows what (watching The Masked Singer, I guess) I was hunkered down in my home office calculating Case Fatality Rates out of China on a spreadsheet with pivot tables. Consequently, I was buying hand sanitizer, Clorox wipes, and a reasonable supply of canned food and toilet paper before it was cool…and long before it was social taboo.  

                I purchased no water. Anyone panic-buying water in response to a virus while living next to the single largest and cleanest source of fresh water in the SOLAR SYSTEM was doing the math with a wholly different arithmetic than me.  (7 + 2 = ‘MERICA!)

                I stockpiled. I did not hoard. Like “bending the curve”, hoarding wasn’t really a thing just then. And at any rate, two large packages of Walmart TP for a koala, a badger, and a dude with a head full of hamsters isn’t all that excessive even in normal times.  I did it for two reasons: first, I was slightly concerned about supply chain continuity and second because I was unable to predict the government approach to quarantine vis-à-vis grocery stores.  There basically isn’t a colloquial adjective to describe my level of respect for any layer of the American government. Planck length comes to mind, but if you’re not up on your physics let’s just say it’s not a lot – and I wouldn’t have put it past them to let a few thousand people starve before realizing “oh shit, we gotta open the Piggly Wiggly! Can we get the FDA to approve that?”

                Fortunately for all of us, the government proved only astonishingly incompetent and not breathtakingly, astonishingly incompetent.  They might let us starve, but at least it doesn’t seem like they’ll affirmatively cause us to starve.

                At any rate, it was sometime in late January or early February that I set out to heat up the AMEX Business Card at the grocery stores near me. That’s right, IRS: I’m deducting the cost of Baby Bell Gouda and Cinnabon Cream o Wheat from my 1125s this year!

 (Dear IRS: jk. 😊  My prior statement was intended only for fatuous comedic effect meant  solely to illicit an emotional response – laughter or perhaps mirth – from my targeted audience and I have no intention whatsoever to inappropriately or fraudulently claim any non-qualified personal expense as business expense, including but not limited to Baby Bell Gouda and/or Cinnabon Cream ‘o Wheat. Please see my attached statement pertaining to Line 19 for further details…)

                My koala’s natural habitat is the blue couch in the front room of my house, watching the front door. It’s where he feels most comfortable. Consequently, anytime you seek to enter or leave my house, you will be watched silently in your every move by a pair of narrow, unblinking, and incurious black eyes.  Sometimes he will also slowly slurp cold black coffee. Sometimes not. Either way: you will be stared at.

Silently.

                Often, I find the weight of that stare unbearable and feel compelled to force conversation.

                Putting my shoes on: “I’m a little concerned about this coronavirus thing in Wuhan. Think I’m gonna stock up on supplies.”

                Blank stare. Slow coffee slurp.

                “Yeah, that virus seems pretty nasty and we don’t have a lot in the house. It’s probably an abundance of caution – I’m probably being nutty – but it would be nice to have a few things around.”

                Silence. Blank stare. Unwavering.

                “I’ll probably hit ALDI. Is there anything you want me to pick up?”

                Silence – unblinking eyes – for two, three, four, five, six seconds…finally, sleepily and dreamily, as though human words are still heavy against his tongue: “yeah…uh….could probably use some more tomato sauce.”

                (There are about fifty seven cans of tomato sauce currently in the lazy-susan, but it’s too exhausting to make this point.)

                “Okay,” I say, and finish tying my shoe.

                As the door swings open he adds: “I can stock up on some stuff too. In case the Govern –” I close the door before he can finish the ‘ment’ on that statement.

 I think the government is merely useless, but to koalas it is the single source of terror and suffering in the entire universe  (after deforestation) – the only blip they ever have on whatever passes for a mental threat monitor… and it is always, always glowing radioactive green.