T.P. Confidential

NO FAIR DISSING THE PUBLIC DURING THIS PANDEMIC!

And no fair psychoanalyzing people like me who just want to have enough toilet paper around the house for obvious sanitary reasons. Stand down, experts. Put your authoritarian egos aside and start paying attention to the zeitgeist. Don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about, either. You know who you are, and you know what you’ve been doing and saying.

I’m specifically referring to you: you government and medical experts who were (and still are) in the dark about COVID-19. But that didn’t stop you from showing up on TV and telling us not to panic. Here’s what you kept telling Americans for the past 2 weeks in nearly every televised broadcast interview: DON’T PANIC. Wash your hands. Stock up. Stock up on supplies you might need, like an extra month or two of your medications, bottled water, canned goods, and other necessities.

Then you urged us to consider which items were really essential to us, personally. Think about what’s really important to you. What do you really need? What are your necessities? Then make sure you have enough of these essentials in stock. So we did.

We followed the advice you gave us, experts. We did what you told us to do. We stocked up with our respective essentials. But then, when the T.P. started flying off the shelves, you reprimanded us for panicking! You scolded us for hoarding! And yet, we were doing exactly what you experts kept telling us to do!

Tell us, O Wise Ones, how you missed the boat on this one. How did you NOT know that toilet paper was THE number one essential on nearly everybody’s list? How could you not connect the dots and realize that “stocking up” in a country of over 330 million people would mean empty shelves and shortages? Think about how your short-sighted communication has contributed to — even incited — the current panic.Then stop dissing, blaming, and otherwise insulting the American public for merely following your advice.

And stop with your lame psychoanalysis, already!

No, we’re not using T.P. to “psychologically regain control of our lives” during this pandemic. We just want keep using something soft to wipe off after we tinkle and take our dumps — and not use corn cobs or old newspapers. That’s all. That’s no mythic symbol. That’s no psychological representation of something else. That’s just called trying not to chafe our fronts or smear our hind parts.

To paraphrase Sigmund Freud, “Sometimes T.P. is a soft maternal aegis, and other times, it’s just a mega roll or regular roll.” Not every essential item is a psychological symbol. Sometimes T.P. just is what it is: a nice soft wipe. This brings us to an important part of our story that is being overlooked by political and medical experts alike.

Around the end of February, before the National Emergency was declared, regular rolls of T.P. began disappearing from store shelves everywhere in the Twin Cities Metro area. Suddenly, only mega — and not regular — rolls were available. Now that might not sound like a catastrophic inconvenience, but when you live in a small space or older house, it’s nearly impossible to install the mega roll in a regular-sized T.P. holder. As a consumer, I couldn’t help but wonder about this change. Of course, I asked about it. Why only mega rolls and no regular ones? No one knew.

No one knew — not the store managers, not the shelf stockers, not even the T.P. manufacturers who could have cleared up the matter online. No answers were forthcoming at all. I should also add, though, that no one wanted to find out what was happening, either.

Then in March, The New York Times published two T.P. news stories. On Sunday, March 1, 2020, “Getting to the Bottom of a Toilet Paper Mystery” appeared. In the article, writer Emily Flitter detailed her visionquest to find out why ecologically responsible Scott-Tube Free had vanished from the shelves. By Saturday, March 14, 2020, though, curiosity had expanded to all brands with “Is There Really a Toilet Paper Shortage?” After this investigation, writers Michael Corkery and Sapna Maheshwari determined that “Manufacturers are afraid of a glut when demand subsides.” Subsides?

Oh, right. Like, in this time of national crisis, T.P. makers are afraid of losing money by making and providing so much T.P. that their oversupply would result in diminished demand? For toilet paper?

Like, people would suddenly have no need, then no demand, for T.P.?

Well, yeah. That’s the dog-ate-my-homework story they’re giving, anyway.

But these raging capitalists who manufacture and distribute T.P. aren’t the only ones at fault here. You experts have to wear your share of the mea culpa hair shirts, too. Now instead of being more careful about the info you’re sharing with the public, you’re starting to pontificate with a new trope. Now you’re guilting us for asking valid questions about the contradictory communications you’ve been giving and lack of leadership on the federal level. Now you’re admonishing us with this pseudo-patriotic let’s-all-work-together B.S. : Now is not the time for partisan politics, or finger-pointing, or criticizing.

That sounds a lot like code for “It’s time to let us experts off the hook, even though we helped create this panic by withholding accurate information upfront, then dumbing down the other lame advice we did give.” Sounds like you want a free pass for not doing your job. Couldn’t you even have asked Dr. OZ for some help in improving your communication skills? By the way, why does he seem to be the only health care professional who can explain things about COVID-19 in a way that everyone understands?

NEWSFLASH: You experts really didn’t know what was going on or how to articulate what little you did know. Too bad your incompetence has had such adverse affects on the American public.

As I was writing and researching my previous editorial about this COVID-19, I (the lowly nonprofessional) was struck by the real possibility that this virus could be passed by “healthy carriers” like Typhoid Mary. But I hesitated bringing up that fact or even mentioning Typhoid Mary by name because I didn’t want to bore readers with old information. I figured everybody would be talking and writing about it so much that my ideas would sound redundant. There I was, trying to deliver some new insights on the Coronavirus when no one was literally talking or writing about how insidiously it could spread. The experts themselves didn’t want to share fundamental information about this virulent virus because it would cause such panic.

It took Larry David’s quip on a Saturday Night Live sketch to make me realize that. Aha! The public really was missing an important piece of the puzzle that would have helped them better understand and cope with this contagion. What makes this virus so insidious (and scary) is the way it can infect people, and none of the experts wanted to admit it, per se.

Asymptomatic people can infect other people with the Coronavirus. Without any fever, cough, or other symptoms, you can still have the virus and still be highly contagious. And other people who feel good and have no symptoms can have the virus and infect you. But other people who do have the symptoms of COVID-19 might not even have COVID-19. The only way you can know for sure if you have the Coronavirus? Get tested for it. But, uh-oh, we don’t have enough kits to do all the testing we need because the stable genius in The White House cut the funding that could have provided testing kits, additional medical personnel, and ventilators. Duh!

He also declared a National Emergency but told States they were on their own when it came to getting testing kits and ventilators. What’s far worse is that Homeland Security and other government agencies already have built-in ways to get their help legally accessed — without requiring Congressional votes or approval. Even the Veteran’s Administration maintains its mission is to provide assistance to civilians(and not just veterans) during times of National Emergency or crisis. So help for America has always been available and ready for action.

But Trump doesn’t know how to use these agencies because, after more than 3 years in The Oval Office, he still doesn’t understand how our government works. And that might be scarier than any oncoming virus.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Oh, wait. BREAKING NEWS: Now we’re only supposed to stock up for a week in advance? Thanks for the tip, experts.

TickTock, TickTock, TickTock…