Homey’s Adventures Too – Chapter 11 – Covid 19

First and foremost, thank you to all who have read my past blog posts and my book, “Homey’s Adventures.” 

As promised, I am continuing the series of all the chapters of my new book, “Homey’s Adventures Too.” This next chapter has the distinction of being a part of my first blog post. At the time, I didn’t know that I was going to post my book rather than publish it. I am now 71 and I decided that I did not want to spend my time haggling with editors, literary agents, and publishers. The main thing I am interested in is to write for your pleasure and mine. So, without further delay, here is Chapter 11: 

Chapter 11 – Covid 19 

I will never quite understand all the reasons we shut down our economy because of the Chinese flu, aka Covid 19. In the beginning, they said that we needed to avoid overwhelming our hospitals. When that did not happen, they said we need to protect the vulnerable. I was in the vulnerable group. I was 69, I had high blood pressure, and diabetes. But I did not want our economy destroyed because of me! 

I had almost died twice. I am already resolved to the fact that when God wanted me to come to heaven, I wanted to go. I did not fear death. I do not look for death, but I am not afraid of dying. I would rather not suffocate to death because of Covid 19. I would rather die in my sleep of a heart attack or stroke, but it is not up to me on how I die. I also know that I and everyone else will die someday. What matters the most is how we live. Staying home avoiding God’s children is not how I want to live. It really was not a big burden for me to stay home. I have chosen to write about love and writers tend to be solitary creatures anyway. However, love is not a solitary act.  

Covid 19 started in Wuhan, China. The thought Nazis did not want it called the Chinese flu because they thought it was racist. Most other pandemics took on the names of their origin, but for some reason calling it the Chinese flu or the Wuhan Flu was now racist. It really did not matter what they called it. It was a virus. It was not human, but it was Wuhan. 

The flu started before I traveled to Haiti, and no one knew of the scale of the pandemic. The Chinese and the World Health Organization were telling the world that it could not be transmitted from human to human. I could have caught it on the plane trip there or the plane trip back. For my trip to Haiti, I had to take a malaria preventing drug, Hydroxychloroquine. After I got back, I went to see my doctor and she said I might have been fortunate to have taken the malaria preventing drug. As my reader knows, I do not believe in luck or coincidence. I do believe in divine destiny. Was this another time the holy spirit protected me? 

My Xena was planning to visit me in Eureka. Before she could travel, the governments of the world shut down all international flights. Of course, I was disappointed, but I did not want her to get hurt or to hurt others by spreading the virus. So, for some reason, the holy spirit delayed our meeting. 

I heard many stories on the news on how stupid some of the restrictions were. A woman in Michigan could not buy a car seat for her baby at Walmart even though the Walmart was open and selling other things. A woman in Texas was arrested and put in jail for opening her hair salon one week early. The quarantine rules stomped all over our basic human rights guaranteed by the Constitution.  

 My best friend Sherlock and I continued to find some way to have the weekly lunch that we had been having for over 18 years. We mostly ordered take out and had lunch at either his home or mine.  

Sherlock and I are sometimes stubborn grumpy old men. Sherlock liked to have fried chicken at the casino buffet. I missed the variety of food at the buffet too. Has anyone proved that Covid 19 is spread by casino buffets? Sherlock and I want to see the research. 

One week we ordered our meal at a steakhouse chain of restaurants. When we got there to pick up our food, they directed us to park next to one of several bar stools they had in the parking lot. When they brought the food out, they did not hand it to us. They placed it on the bar stool in paper bags and then we had to get it off the bar stool. I am thinking: Who thinks of these ridiculous precautions? Did anyone know if this method was safer than just handing the food in sterile paper bags to us? Did they think that serving off where someone placed their butt was appetizing? At every other place I ordered takeout, they just handed me the food, so, I doubt that the bar stool directive came from the Center for Disease Control. 

I got out of the car and picked up the food. I stood there looking at the bar stool wondering if I should tip it. I wondered how many sexy beautiful rear ends sat there before my food. How many ugly fat rear ends of men? I was losing my appetite. I got back into the car, and we drove off to eat our bar stool treasure. 

For me, my first thing was selling a house. I was concerned about not achieving my goal because of the quarantine. I had picked the right realtor and she did not give up. The family who wanted to buy the house did not give up either. However, they did include a test for radon gas as a part of the inspection. 

I had not opened a window in my basement for 20 years. No one warned me that the radon test was going to be a part of the inspection. If I had known, I would have aired out the basement before the test. The test came back positive. I complained to no avail. I was not happy, but I had no choice but to allow an additional deduction from the sale price to compensate for radon abatement. I was cornered. I could have delayed the sale and had more tests done, but I was out of money. I complained to my realtor that I thought appraisers and inspectors were just another way of changing the price after agreement. It never results in the favor of the seller. Somehow the realtor held the sale of my home together and my “first thing first” task became moving out in time. 

I needed a plan for moving. I soon realized that I could not do it myself. I really did not have the money to hire a mover. I thought that I could move over several days. I could not ask friends to help me because of Covid 19. 

I rented a storage unit to move things into until my new apartment was ready. I realized this was not going work out. I got a quick loan from one of the internet lenders to hire a mover. I started moving my daughter’s stuff to a storage unit. I realized that I needed another unit to store the stuff that I did not want to throw away because it would not all fit in my smaller two-bedroom apartment. So, by trial and error, I developed a plan. 

Closing day came and the title company said they could not get a payoff amount from my mortgage company. One of the reasons I decided to move was because my mortgage company was extremely hard to do business with. My realtor somehow held the deal together. I had chosen the right realtor to sell my house. Seven days later, the house closed, and it was moving day. 

I did a decent job of using stickers to designate what went where. I used yellow for storage, I used pink and green for the apartment. I used red for junk. What I did not do so well was anticipate what would fit in the new apartment. The movers started late, and we were putting the last of my stuff in storage at 9 PM. I was exhausted. 

I had to sleep on a twin bed the first night because my king size bed did not fit in the smaller bedrooms of the apartment. I knew at that moment I was going to miss my old master bedroom that was the size of a two-car garage. I had written so many fantasies for my first book about that wonderful room.  

I was swimming in boxes. I could not find anything the next day. I eventually found a glass and some formal gold colored silverware. As I unpacked, I took more stuff to storage. I eventually bought a queen size bed that was a lot more comfortable to sleep on. 

Looking back on all this, I was lucky to get my house sold and my stuff moved during the Covid 19 pandemic. I now believe the holy spirit was watching over me. I do not know how I could have done it without him. 

End Of Chapter 11 

I hope you enjoyed chapter 11. I will give you “Chapter 12 – Binge Watching” next week. My new book has 32 chapters. So, if you want to receive all 32 chapters as soon as the post is created, then become a follower of this blog. 

If you do not want to wait that long and you have not read my first book. I encourage you to go to my website, www.homeysadventures.com. You can read the first two chapters for free, and you can also purchase it. Or you can purchase it from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and many other fine retailers. Just search for it using the words: Homey’s Adventures by Jim Wish. 

If you liked this blog post, please click on the like button at the bottom of this page. If you Love my work, then please donate to my future writing: 

I liken myself to the Vienna Violinist described in chapter 5. I play (write) for your enjoyment and mine. God bless you all.