Author Richard Cahill's Website--Living By Our Motto:"There Are No Stupid Questions, Just Stupid People Asking Questions Everybody else already knows the answer to."

We’ve only developed a concern about planet-busting size asteroids since I grew into my dissipated adulthood. We never worried about asteroids hitting Earth when I was a youth—we were too busy worried that we couldn’t get under our desks in time if the Soviets decided to drop an H-bomb on our elementary school.

Worries change though, and the discovery that a massive chunk fell out of the sky and killed the dinosaurs, plus a few Hollywood blockbusters about a fictional chonk space rock killing all of us if it wasn’t for Bruce Willis, and now there’s at least one story a week in the news about astronomers discovering another near-earth object that could potentially flatten us back into the Stone Age.
               
They haven’t found one that is actually going to hit our planet yet, and their definition of “near” extends out several millions of miles, but when science writers seize on each newly-discovered interplanetary brick capable of busting the windshield of human existence, the first thing they do is size it. And we’re not talking about its size in feet, yards, meters, tons or kilos. The science press is obsessed with comparing planet-popping rock gobs to objects it thinks the public can identify with.
               
Just go to Google and run “asteroid the size of” as a search and you’ll see what I mean. They run the gamut from “the size of a giraffe,” up to “the size of Texas.” Architectural achievements are well-represented. The Great Pyramid, the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Eiffel Tower all have their asteroidal equivalents floating around out there, waiting to smush into us and cause unimaginable harm.
               
For some reason, giraffes are the favored animal in which to size asteroids. Asteroids the size of polar bears, elephants and blue whales must be out there as well, but so far, they remain outside of scientific scrutiny. But giraffe-sized asteroids have been spotted, raising the questions about the appearance and behavior of these space stones. Are they spotted? Do they graze on the high leaves of the solar system? Will they inevitably crash into the Serengeti?
               
Another Google result is “the size of 350 giraffes.” This is useless. Nobody I know has ever seen 350 giraffes at once. There is also “the size of 2,000 ferrets.” This may make sense to you, if you are concerned about asteroids and also a ferret-farmer, but it doesn’t help the rest of us much.
               
Some asteroids are vaguely described. The “size of a building,” is often used. Buildings can range from the size of a sex shop or a meth lab to the size of the Pentagon, and the asteroid-watching public deserves to know which variety of building is most likely to land on their head like a leftover Chinese booster rocket.
               
There are many objects that most people are perfectly familiar with the size of, and yet they never make it into the asteroid comparative-sizing chart. You’ll never see “The size of the yard sale my weirdo neighbors have every week,” “the size of the truck I’ve been stuck behind for five fucking minutes on this goddam upgrade,” “the size of an $800,000 condo in La Jolla, California,” or “the size of a destination wedding party on Maui,” used to describe any potential earth-ending space rubble.
               
Also neglected are the effects of sized asteroids. An asteroid the size of a giraffe would kill you pretty cleanly if it landed in your man cave, just as cleanly as a real giraffe would if it did the same, and a tad more explosively besides, but it wouldn’t end many lives outside of your own. An asteroid the size of the Golden Gate Bridge would blow up Marin County and a couple of adjacent counties besides, or swamp the Bay with a tsunami as tall as, say, the Eiffel Tower, if it landed in the adjacent Pacific, but it wouldn’t would wipe out life on Earth.
               
State-sized asteroids are of much deeper concern. An asteroid the size of Rhode Island would be massively bigger than the six-mile-wide space slab that erased the dinosaurs, so evolution might have to start over again from whatever preheated scum might survive in the oceans, if that one hit. An asteroid the size of Texas would be pretty unlikely, considering  Texas is 801 miles across, and the largest known asteroid, Ceres, is only 587 miles across. But if an asteroid the size of Texas would sneak in from one of the low-rent neighborhoods that surround the Solar System, like the Kuiper Belt, it would probably blow enough of Earth into space to form a ring around it, which would eventually coalesce into a second, smaller Moon.
               
​Which would be pretty, sure. None of us would be around to write songs about it, though.

Being President of the United States comes with major perks—the free airplane rides, the big desk, and all the state dinners you can eat, but nowadays it also always comes with a suspicion from certain corners that you might be the Antichrist.
 
The Antichrist, for those of you who don’t keep track of such things, is a major player in the Final Days as laid out in the Bible, the figure who is prophesized to oppose the Son of God when he returns in glory. He is also prophesized to get his ass kicked by Jesus, which maybe accounts for the whole Apocalypse not having started yet. The Antichrist might be sandbagging it. He may just be lying there with his head on his pillows, thinking, “Why get up for that?
 
But he is suspected of occupying the White House occasionally. Obama made a great candidate for the Antichrist. Mostly because he was black, of course, but also because he was obviously smarter than most of the people that hated him. And he wore that tan suit, and tan is the official color of the Final Tribulation.
 
Just kidding. If Obama was the Antichrist, then Biden has already been the Vice-Antichrist, which may look nice on a resume, but it’s not on Joe’s, because it turns out Obama wasn’t the Antichrist after all. The Antichrist would have spent the last four years gathering an army of evildoers to conquer Jerusalem and all Obama’s been doing is collecting that gigantic  bucket of post-Presidential cheese and stuffing it in his wallet. That and wake-boarding in Hawaii.
 
Trump would have made a better-than-average Antichrist. He had the attitude for it, but not the work ethic. He’s got nothing to do now except fume and get fatter in Florida, which is what a lot of retired American guys do, while his followers gradually tiptoe away from him. He’s no longer Antichrist material.
 
The sad thing is, Joe isn’t either. He likes dogs, and not Armored Mastiffs that Can Crunch a Human Femur in Half, which is the kind of dog the Antichrist might like, but regular, take a dump by the rose bushes and then a nap on the lawn kind of dogs. Also, Dr. Jill would not have married the Antichrist.  She’s just obviously not that kind of woman.
 
We do have Kamala, though, and already noted theologian Robert Henderson has said that she is “driven by the Antichrist spirit,” though most times when you notice her being driven, it is by the Secret Service. Kamala at first may seem like a good choice for the Antichrist—she wears Converse sneakers with pants suits, which many of her critics say is a Fashion Choice from Hell. And guess what she’s not?

If you said “white,” you are correct. But if you said, “a guy,” you are also correct. And the Spawn of Hell, who will battle Jesus in the skies of Earth on the Final Day, has always been prophesized to be a dude.
 
So forget Kamala, too. Yep, Hell has a glass ceiling.

We Apocalypse fans are always ready for the world to end, and there’s no better time than now, what with a world-wide epidemic, depression, racial unrest and locusts, locusts, locusts all roiling merrily along. There’s no question that the human race deserves to come to a full stop. Like a deer that’s been hit by a timber truck and is lying in the road gasping to force some air into its punctured lungs, we deserve to be put out of our misery.
 
Sadly, the there has been a dearth of world-ending news at this moment we need it most. All the asteroids seem to be missing us by a million miles. Biblical prophesies predicted a plague, natch, but nobody in the Bible punched each other out over facemasks. Likewise, white supremacy is not mentioned in the Good Book, because there are no white people in the Bible. And Jesus is not coming back. Let’s face it, Jesus is the Cleveland Browns of world-ending, always rumored to be on the verge of a good season, but never fulfilling His promise. Likewise, Nibiru, the Death Planet. Fuck Nibiru.
 
There’s always global warming, but let’s face it, there will always be global warming, but right now even that’s on hold, as tons of people are still staying inside and resisting the pull of two-buck-a-gallon gas.
 
That’s why it’s so heartwarming to see the Mayans make their comeback. Sure, we left them for dead in 2012, when they predicted, in a fashion we have always deemed to be cowardly, the end of the world after their civilization had safely vanished, but now a drunk astrologer has figured out that they really meant 2020 instead of 2012, and in fact meant this week in 2020, which leaves us tingling with excitement, because it's already Thursday.

The error occurred because of the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars, which means we have to add an extra eight years to the original Mayan prediction.
 
It’s very complicated, especially since the original prediction was based on neither the Julian or Gregorian calendars, but on the Mayan calendar, but here we are perfectly willing to grasp at straws. This is a world which deserves to end. The Mayans weren’t very specific about how it is supposed to happen. Probably a huge rocking worldwide earthquake which causes the Indian Ocean to slosh over the Himalayas, as depicted in the movie, will do the trick. But the Sun blowing up, or us getting all fried from a gamma-ray blast from deep space, will work as well.
 
Of course, some people are not ready for the world to end. People with lots of cheese in their 401(k)’s, for example, or kids who haven’t had their birthdays yet this year. It’s kind of unfair to black people, too, because white people just figured out black lives do matter, but black people are used to getting over unfair, and everybody being dead will only accelerate that process.
 
But most of us are just thinking, “Hot damn! Bring it on!” and will be content with whatever flavor Apocalypse we are treated to, as long as it wipes out every locust, covid and bad-tempered cop as well as the rest of us.
 
Everybody except Jesus. You just know He’s not going to show.

According to “prominent Christian numerologist” David Meade, the moment of the Rapture has been determined, and it is…TODAY! 
 
Yes, even as you read these sinful words, your Christian neighbors are getting Hoovered into Heaven and competing with the souls of aborted fetuses for the embrace of Jesus Christ!
 
You’re really hating this, because you’ve been stuck in the house for a month and you’ve been just daydreaming about going to a Mexican restaurant again, but your believer friends are getting out of quarantine and heading straight for eternal glory, which beats that basket of fresh, piping hot tortilla chips with salsa fresca your mouth’s been watering for like a gong! You could have read a little more Bible and watched a little less porn and you’d be on your way to the Pearlies, too, but too late now.
 
Maybe you’re thinking “Who is this guy David Meade and what’s a Christian numerologist anyway?” I’d say, ask him, but he was probably the first guy Raptured since he was clued in on it by his prophecy. He was likely Raptured fully dressed in a tasteful, understated business suit because he knew it was coming, whereas many worthy souls are getting raptured in their bathrobes and underwear, because that’s all they’ve been wearing for the last four weeks.
 
To answer your question, however, a Christian numerologist is the same as any other numerologist, except that Christian numerologists don’t use certain numbers when they’re numerologying, like 666, which is the number of the Beast. Or 69, which is the number of oral sex, or 44, which is the number of Barack Obama.
 
This is Meade’s prediction: During this time frame, on April 23, 2018 the moon appears under the feet of the Constellation Virgo.
The Sun appears to precisely clothe Virgo… Jupiter is birthed on April 08, 2018.
The 12 stars at that date include the nine stars of Leo, and the three planetary alignments of Mercury, Venus and Mars – which combine to make a count of 12 stars on the head of Virgo.
Thus the constellations Virgo, Leo and Serpens-Ophiuchus represent a unique once-in-a-century sign exactly as depicted in the 12th chapter of Revelation. This is our time marker.
 
“Hmm,” you might be thinking. “That sounds more like astrology, instead of numerology, which makes it all the more convincing. I’d better go feed my Christian neighbor’s cat, since she has no doubt been slurped up into eternal life. My neighbor, not her cat, that is.”
 
Also—Nibiru! The Death Planet will finally show, causing earthquakes and volcanoes, because that’s what Nibiru does.
 
“Wait a second,” you might say. “Nibiru? First numerology, then astrology, then the doom planet Nibiru? Kind of sounds like Meade’s throwing everything he can think of into some kind of apocalyptic gumbo.”
 
Whatever. I mean, I know I’m not getting Raptured, because I’m a pretty bad Christian. And the girl is not going to get Raptured, because she’s such a bad Christian she’s a Jew. But there are several reverent older women on our corner of the block I have not seen yet today. Now, maybe it’s because it’s only eight AM and I haven’t left the house yet, but on the other hand, the Rapture is NOW.
 
I’m buying cat food.

Now that spring break is over, Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, has finally called for shutting down his state in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus, but the Trump acolyte has carefully excluded two businesses from the shutdown order—gun shops and churches.
 
Even here in California, our governor was forced to let gun and ammo sales continue, after an initial attempt at banning them, due to public pressure from local idiots, who don’t feel safe lying around the house in the same bathrobe for weeks at a time unless they are heavily armed. Here in San Diego, we just got an order for everyone outside to be wearing a facemask, or at least a bandanna, so it makes a little sense—as long as you’re looking like you’re about to rob a stagecoach, you might as well be carrying a revolver.
 
Gun aficionados are ready and possibly eager for the kind of societal breakdown that results in everyone getting lots of tattoos, wearing skimpy leather clothing and trying to kill Mel Gibson. They are ready for blood to run in the streets, which currently seems unlikely because nobody is in the streets. Burglary is at an all-time low, since everybody is at home, and home invasions have dropped off to nearly nothing, because all the prospective home invaders are afraid they might catch the virus from you. School, mall and workplace shootings are all suddenly on hold.
 
The only people these rookie gun owners can shoot is themselves, and, while they do, putting a bullet in your own leg is hardly the culmination of anyone’s fantasy of armed omniscience.
 
Here in CA, though, we’ve shut down Jesus. Religious services are conducted entirely on Zoom. Entire ministries are suddenly dependent on PayPal instead of live collection plates, to their financial detriment, as people who go to church just to show off their cars and clothes or sell insurance to their neighbors are now not bothering to check in with God.
 
Not so in Florida, where the Guv has decreed that if you want to get together with a thousand of your contagious neighbors and handle snakes, speak in tongues or just bleat for mercy at the roof of the cathedral, you can. In fact, DeSantis has implied that doing so is going to help stop the spread of the plague, although God has not seen fit to stop it anywhere else. Possibly that is because the virus started in China, which is atheist, continued to Iran, which is Muslim, then busted over to Italy and Spain, which are Catholic.
 
So, it's possible Jesus has not yet been prayed at sufficiently by honest-to-God genuine Floridian evangelical Christians gathered together in air-conditioned glory in their sweaty Southern state. However, as is the case with most all prayers, Our Lord seems to holding a hand to His ear and saying, "I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

But when the pipeline to eternity has been filled with enough petitions from righteous, English-speaking Americans full of piety and fried foods, when enough psalms have been sung and bake sales held, possibly Heaven will have mercy on us and let some team of scientists who have been working seventy hours a week since January to formulate a vaccine.
 
Then God will get the thanks. And the Guv might get re-elected. 

The President revealed a new goal for beating the coronavirus over the weekend, which is to let it swallow a hundred thousand or more American lives, after which he will be victorious over the virus and deserving of re-election by popular applause.
 
Many of us in the fake media were skeptical of this change of long-term outlook, because Trump had previously said the plague was just “one guy from China,” “completely under control,” and “It’ll be over by April,” which started yesterday. Also, we noticed that China, where the epidemic began in as a completely unknown infection and caught their health system pants-down, was likely to end up with many fewer dead.
 
Even less charitable observers have pointed out that going from “completely under control” to “100,000 dead, 240,000 tops,” cannot really be described as “moving the goalposts.” It’s more like disassembling the goalposts, shooting them to the moon, persuading retired Apollo astronauts to go back up there and re-assemble them, then landing the entire Miami Dolphins football team on the lunar surface so they can miss a crucial, last-second field goal there.
 
“Apples and oranges,” snorted Dr. Deborah Birx, who has replaced Anthony Fauci as the public health spokesperson for Trump, since Fauci was seen mouthing, “What the fuck is he saying now?” at one of Trump’s daily pressers. “First off, a lot of Chinese have stopped dying because we quit calling COVID-19 the “Chinese virus,” or the “Wuhan virus,” or the “What do you expect from yellow people that eat frigging bats bug?” Some people thought that that was racist, so a lot of Chinese are not dying just to be politically correct.
 
“Secondly, the Chinese happened to have a lot of masks, face shields and respirators lying around, which we don’t have because of, you know, our freedoms. Plus, Obama. Obama used to give every kid who came to the White annual House Easter Egg Roll a mask and a respirator. You could see those brats leaving the party, each with a bunch of eggs, candy, and a free n95. That’s a big reason stockpiles were dangerously low.
 
“Sure, we fired the CDC Pandemic Response Team. They were a bunch of slackers. You could go into that office any morning and you could see them high-fiving each other and saying “No pandemics today!” and then just playing Minecraft until it was time to punch out. We replaced them with a guy who used to stage houses for Jared. He’s doing a great job.
 
“But the main reason we’re going to have to try to hold it to 100,000 dead is—you guessed it—impeachment. You can't expect a President who has to maintain an iron grip on every sweaty set of Republican testicles in the Senate for months on end to pay attention to a mortal threat to public health. So, yes, it was the Democrats fault. But do we hear the lamestream media call it the Pelosi Plague? No.

Plus, the Super Bowl. Nobody was willing to screen visitors from China until the big game was over. Likewise, stockpiling medical equipment, manufacturing tests—we turned down those tests from the WHO because they wanted KC AND points by the way, in return—was just not important in comparison to the Bowl. Then, we had a hangover.
 
“So, holding the death toll to less than 200 thousand will be an achievement of which this Administration can be proud. In November, I see cheering Americans lining up to vote Trump and eager to invest their dead relative's life insurance money in a resurgent stock market.
 
“If it turns out to be only 99,000 dead—well, I pity Joe Biden.”

Religious swindler and Trump spiritual advisor Paula White has comforting words for those who fear death from the coronavirus.

In an interview on “The Jim Bakker Show,” White claimed that she had been taken to heaven where God showed her new construction to cope with the recent surge of souls. 

“God has commissioned builder angels to expand the size of heaven. He will make sure there is plenty of room for the new admissions.” says Paula.

In this ugly new world of fear, quarantine and plague, we are so lucky to have Paula directing our thoughts Heavenward, although apparently, she’s the only one who gets to go there and come back, like some divine commuter in Jesus's HOV lane. So, for those believers gasping their last on a respirator, there is the comfort of knowing that they are not going to be stuffed into tents or crammed into cages like common refugees when they reach the Pearlies. Right now, even as their blood oxygen is dropping to zero, hardhat angels are banging together Heavenly condos for them in a blizzard of lumber and drywall, barely pausing for a manna break.
 
Those of us who have been assured that our final destination is the fiery pit have cause to worry, though. Is Satan making his imps do the same? We can only hope so. Nobody wants to be crammed into Hell, which already has a bad reputation for creature comforts, without having an adequate opportunity to socially distance.
 
In the meantime, here on Earth, fossil fundamentalist Pat Robertson has had a revelation that the coronavirus is caused by oral sex, and not just any oral sex. According to Pat:
 
“Some of these young uns are doing all kinds of unnatural things with their sex organs,” said Robertson. “When people do that, they transfer all kinds of chemicals from ladies’ private parts and that’s where I think the virus came from. We never had this kind of thing when I was coming up. But no one was committing oral sex back then.”
 
Yeah, Pat, they were. You just missed out on it. But your revelation is a huge theological advance anyway. All of your fellow fundies are still blaming the virus on the usual suspects—God punishing us for gay marriage, fornication, transgender bathrooms, porn and masturbation.  But you have put the sin spotlight on the one sex act that is commonly performed, with varying degrees of skill, by heterosexual men, who are generally the heroes in the Bible. And the virus is transmitted by lady chemicals, which is Robertson’s delicate description for vaginal secretions. If you want to be even less delicate, and we are capable of that here, cooze juice is full of corona.
 
Fortunately for guys, virus transmission is a one-way street. We’re not going to have to give up donating our man chemicals orally to the girls to stop the spread of the virus, so the men of Alabama and any other place where they take Robertson seriously can keep on begging for oral sex just like they always have.
 
Unfortunately for us hetero peeps, this is one logical explanation for men dying of the beer bug more than women. Lesbians ought to be taking a big hit, too. Has anybody checked on them?
 
So that’s it. The cure for coronavirus is cutting out the cunnilingus. No more slurping the clam, or nibbling the fur burger, or licking the carpet, or gobbling the snatch, or eating hair pie. Dining at the Y is out, as is munching muffin, chowing box, tonguing the beaver or mopping out the boner garage.
 
So that’s it, girls. We’ve got to keep our faces out of your naughty bits. Pat Robertson has spoken.
 
You’d better just hope nobody tells him about eating ass. 

White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway asserted today that the death toll from the coronavirus is less than it seems, because many older Americans are exhausted from the Trump Administration’s efforts to Make America Great Again.
 
“It’s a hoax that this virus is what’s offing our senior population. These elderly Americans are merely fatigued by the successes of President Trump,” the Siren of Spin said. “Some American seniors are just too feeble to endure the glow of this era of American splendor. Many of them are choosing to ‘check out,’ so to speak, at this peak of American greatness.
 
“We, of course, regret their loss, but we can hardly blame them for kicking the oxygen habit out of sheer joy at what the last four years has brought. The failed Obama Administration should have had accomplishments like ours to boast of. From putting up several miles of wall, to re-opening one coal mine, to courageous tax cuts that nobody worth less than a few million even noticed, to getting nice letters from North Korea, our President has outstripped all previous Presidential achievements in a mere four years, and did it while lowering his golf handicap.
 
“Likewise, we reject the notion that retired people are dying in despair because their 401(k)’s entirely vanished, and that their Social Security is next. Those proud Americans are succumbing to pure joy that America is First again, and are choosing to buy the farm at this apex of American success.
 
“To be an American at this time of epic American glory can be tiring, and we are sorry to lose these citizens who are blissfully heading to Heaven, their lungs exploding with pride at all President Trump has done. They will be missed. But if by chance you’re still around, and your doctor says that, unfortunately, you have to share a respirator with a minority person in order to survive, go ahead and do it.
 
“You’ll still want to vote for Trump in November.”

Out of a morbid sense of onrushing doom, Americans are seizing the chance to give up kale and acai berries. They're  filling their carts with double-stuf Oreos and bags of chips the size of sofa bolsters. As we citizens of the pandemic scour the barren supermarket aisles for frozen Cinnabons and Sara Lee cheesecakes, radicchio and Swiss chard are rotting on the shelves.

This just goes to show the common sense of the average American. When he or she is vibrantly optimistic about the future, they’re at the gym, pedaling madly on a stationary bike and hydrating with some low-calorie blue drink that’s so loaded with trace amounts of useless homeopathic crap that it costs four bucks a bottle. When they’re forcibly stuck at home, with nothing to do except watch their 401(k)’s disappear like they wish the Kardashians would, they snuggle into the couch cushions, drink Jim Beam and eat caramel popcorn.
 
Hand a quarantined person a plate of raw veggies and they’re liable to throw it back in your face. “Stick them Daikon radishes where the sun don’t shine,” they say. “And fuck your ranch dip, too,” they might add, as they dip their pork rinds into chunky blue cheese dressing.
 
It’s Easter egg season, but nobody’s bothering to hide their baskets. Just keep those Reese’s peanut-butter eggs coming. And hollow chocolate bunnies. And solid chocolate bunnies. The only Easter candy sales that will suffer from the virus are the stuff that nobody likes, but looks good in the basket—jelly beans and Peeps.  Those things are the jicama of candy.
 
Meat is making a big comeback. Prime rib and mashed are pushing tilapia and wild rice right into the garbage disposal. Those Impossible Burgers? They’re impossible to sell nowadays. When Americans are staring death in the face, they want to be cramming a real Whopper into their meat chute, and dabbing real grease off their lips with as few napkins as possible, because they’re saving the rest of the inch-thick wad they snatched off the counter as a substitute for toilet paper.
 
After a couple weeks in quarantine, you may fear the bathroom scale more than you fear your neighbor coughing at your screen door. Discipline yourself. Only eat a Dorito when Trump lies about the virus, or shows that he knows less about infectious disease than he does about the Constitution. It’s only one press conference a day. You may not finish the bag, but for sure you won’t starve.
 
Bottom line is, we’re all coming out of this dead or fat. It’s an election year. Vote for whoever promises you the cheapest insulin.

REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. Virus, for taking time out of your busy schedule to give us this interview.
 
CORONAVIRUS: It’s no problem, pal. All I got to do is spread, and I’m doing that while we’re chatting.
 
REPORTER: What’s it like, being a major health problem?
 
CORONAVIRUS: Well, being a virus, it’s something you prepare for your whole life, but you’re still not really ready for it when it comes. It’s like any career in show business or music—you toil for years in seedy nightclubs or valet park cars in West Hollywood until boom! Suddenly you’re center stage. In my case, of course, I prepared for my worldwide moment in a bat’s ass. That bat pooped on some Chinese guy’s head, he touched it and rubbed his eyes and wham! It’s showtime.
 
REPORTER: Did you think about staying in China?
 
CORONAVIRUS: Thought about it? Sure, I did. What, there’s like a billion and a half of them to infect? And another billion plus next door in India. But there’s an old infectious disease saying, “Go West, young virus. Go West.” I knew I was going to make it big in the USA. From the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans bright with foam, etc. God bless America! It’s the only place to be for a rookie virus with stars in its eyes, like me!
 
REPORTER: But some of the viruses that tried to spread here previously—I’m talking SARS, MERS, Ebola—they never got a foothold here. Don’t you think you’d be better off in a country with a poorer health infrastructure?
 
CORONAVIRUS: Carpe the diem, dude. It’s true a couple of my fellow viruses died on this hill, but that was back before Trump was President. The CDC ain’t what it used to be, good buddy. We viruses may fear effective treatments and reliable vaccines, but bullshit don’t hurt us. We don’t give a crap about blither on Twitter. Putting your holy roller Vice President in charge of beating me don’t scare me none. Pray me away! Go ahead and try. I’ll just be infecting while you’re genuflecting!
 
REPORTER: You certainly seem confident that you’ll prevail.
 
CORONAVIRUS: I got Fox and all the right-wing media on my side. Any sign that I’m spreading like a California brush fire is interpreted as a criticism of Trump, so it don’t get no play on Hannity. Those old people watching him are the first ones I plan to kill off. And I’ve been to my first Trump rally! All those luscious victims in their diabetes carts! Reaching under their oxygen masks to wipe the tears from their eyes while Trump brags about how I’m under control. It’s heaven for an infectious disease on the go, like me!
 
REPORTER: Do you have people you specifically plan to infect?
 
CORONAVIRUS: Well, everybody, natch. That’s the way we pandemics roll. But, sure, you have your dream targets. Pat Robertson, Paula White—any of those people that think Jesus is going to stop me—they’d be my pleasure to get all contagious with. Hopefully, they’ll blame me on the gays with their last breath.
 
REPORTER: What about, you know, the ultimate target?
 
CORONAVIRUS: I got big dreams, bro—you might have noticed that—but not impossible dreams. In three weeks, Trump is going to have himself sealed in a bubble-boy chamber with a flat screen TV and his Twitter phone, and he’ll be running the country, such as he does, from there until I run my course. What has he ever done to make you think he was brave? Right now, I guarantee you there’s a jar of hand sanitizer in every hallway in the White House, and an armed Secret Service agent making sure you use it. Hopefully, they’re sneezing into their elbows, right? Hah!
 
REPORTER: You really seem cheerful about your prospects, but in the end, don’t you think they’ll stamp you out?
 
CORONAVIRUS: Maybe so, cuz, but I’m going to enjoy my time at the top. That’s the way we viruses are, you know. We’re all kind of one-hit wonders. Hasta! Got to hit another nursing home. And, hey—learn to wash your hands right. That’ll be especially useful when you run out of toilet paper.