What is it about toilet paper?

Hype aside, I thought of a few sobering thoughts that may be worth sharing. If for no other reason but comic relief…perhaps. A tragic comedy, that is…

1. Why hasn’t anyone taken the gap to produce a disinfectant to disinfect the bottles of the disinfectant that we use to disinfect our hands? I mean, we’re touching the bottles with potentially infected hands, not so? Or are disinfectant bottles self-disinfecting?
2. I still don’t get the toilet paper thing. But more importantly, all the reports about mad shopping sprees, at least here in South Africa, seem to be from areas of affluence. Are the rich more paranoid than the poor? Or do the poor see this as yet another onslaught that they simply have to grin and bear because they have no option?
3. The faith-based responses are the most curious for me. Every disaster is an opportunity to proclaim the superiority of our faith. But every opportunity to serve those less fortunate than us is an excuse to encourage them to have more faith. Actually practicing our faith is somehow never as important as preaching it. Like hoarding toilet paper instead of sharing disinfectant.
4. Conspiracies abound. However, only to demonstrate how supposedly ‘woke’ we are about the underhandedness of our governments and the New World Order. But we happily indulge in the materialism spawned by those deviant masters. Remember that toilet paper binge?
5. Blame it on the bat-eating Chinese. Because, you know, the way to combat that is to buy toilet paper. Although there is more and more evidence accumulating pointing to this being a manufactured virus, with a carefully orchestrated response. But, I’m not woke like you guys, so I’ll stay out of the conspiracy theory space. Where’s my toilet paper?
6. Public gatherings. Hehehe. A sad joke. Those that have a safe space discourage it, and those that don’t, look on with curiosity wondering what the fuss is all about. Curiously though, the demographic of the victims of this virus are largely those from affluent backgrounds or so-called non-shithole countries. Perhaps a decrepid lifestyle in a crowded informal settlement is healthier than the self-indulgent lifestyles of the oblivious and wealthy? Perhaps that is why they need all that toilet paper. After all this time, they’ve lost sight of the difference between their rectum and their mouths. (I kept it decent, so don’t raise your eyebrow at me).
7. The idealists are possibly the most refreshing of the lot. Believing somehow that this mass hysteria is suddenly going to imbue us with a collective conscience so that our excessive ways that are apparently killing the planet will suddenly be transformed into Kumbaya. Ummm, remember that toilet paper run on the markets? (all puns intended)
8. Oh, the economy. How can we forget the focus on the billionaires that are sadly no longer billionaires and have fallen from grace because their stocks crashed? Perhaps they need more toilet paper because they’re crapping themselves?
9. But government cares, right? Just like how they care about the poverty and long-drop toilets the rest of the year. Oh, wait, poverty and long-drop toilets are fodder for campaigning among the masses that keep them in power. But this horrid virus that threatens to affect their own kind is suddenly a national disaster. Is it a national disaster? Absolutely. But not any more of a disaster than the disastrous leadership that created the overcrowded settlements and decrepit public health system that is now grossly inadequate to deal with this disaster. But the fools with hoards of toilet paper are suddenly celebrating the show of leadership in dealing so decisively with this pandemic. The only pandemic we have is gross ignorance coupled with arrogance. But I’m probably just talking crap because I have toilet paper envy, or something like that.

We lost our humanity long before Corona. And if our response and attitude towards each other during this crisis is anything to go by, we won’t re-find our humanity anytime soon either. But social media makes us feel better about our empty lives and our need to gather in meaningless social traditions that serve none other than our own need for validation about the success we have achieved within the systems created by the ones that we choose to hate, while wearing religion on our sleeves, and reminding people of the end times.

We’ve lost our way. And Corona is not about to help us find it.