I Want A Handout
I want the government to give me a lot of money
Carrie is micro-cancelled after someone tweets a photo of her and Stanford lowering their masks to smoke while waiting for rapid tests. Wallowing in embarrassment, she eats too many Goop THC gummy bears and, thinking she is dying, calls Mr. Big.
Charlotte is dating a handsome ER doctor, but finds he is usually too tired and traumatized to have sex during the pandemic. She buys her first vibrator from the Instagram shopping page.
Steve is furloughed from the bar, and becomes active in the DSA while living at Miranda’s house to save money. They fight bitterly when Miranda does not tip the Chinese food delivery guy adequately.
Samantha is hired by Andrew Cuomo to repair his image after he is seen violating indoor dining restrictions at Le Bernardin. They start hooking up, but Cuomo breaks it off after she accidentally appears naked in the background of a Zoom press conference.
I think the only TV show that could do a good Covid episode is Sex and the City. What makes the girls so fun to watch is their blissful unawareness of the world around them. They are glamorous because they are completely aloof. If the show were still on, the girls would discuss if you should <3 a guy on Hinge if he didn’t post a black square on Instagram. They would vote for Joe Biden so they could literally go back to brunch. It might be nice to be as numb to the world as Carrie is.
Because this shit is awful. One in eight Americans did not have enough food last week. Up to 40 million Americans will be evicted or foreclosed on soon. Children are falling behind as remote learning drags on; in Houston, 42% of students got at least one F this semester. 126 House Republicans are backing an effort to overturn the election. 20,000 people are dying every week, and it’s only going up. 750 Benghazis per day!
Congress is currently locked in a stalemate over a stimulant package. Democrats propose giving everyone a $400 low-interest loan or two STEM college credits, contingent on successful completion of Pharell’s MasterClass on racism. Republicans propose stripping you nude, covering you in feathers, then hosting a “Duck Hunt,” where older boys throw loose change at you and, if they hit you, you may keep the coins. Inevitably, both plans will be considered too generous and the deal will collapse.
What would happen if they tried this in Europe? If the French government did not provide relief, the citizens would storm the streets, torch every teeny Citroën police car, then stand arm-in-arm reciting Robin Williams stand-up bits. This would happen daily until everyone received €2000 a month plus funding to make a series of black comedy animated shorts about extramarital sex.
And that’s just the bare minimum. In addition to generous monthly payments, the Finnish government sponsored an album of heavy metal Christmas song covers to boost national morale. In Sweden, the government promised to hold an EDM festival in 2021 for youths who went without their traditional pre-graduation “Mischief Week.” Every Norwegian citizen was given a stipend to stay home and write an 800-page memoir about a time when their dad drank too much gløgg and got a little randy.
I hate to say it, but I do not think the vaccine is coming to save us anytime soon. The Trump administration did not buy enough of the Pfizer one. GlaxoSmithKline just found out that their vaccine does not work. Only 61% of Americans say they would take it. Just 54% of women say they will take the vaccine unless it is administered by John Stamos’s character from General Hospital.
Dr. Bob Wachter, head of UCSF’s Department of Medicine, tweeted this and I found it frighteningly prescient:
Here’s how I think it will play out. If you work for a big company, you’ll get it at work. If not, you go to the vaccine portal which your city or state paid McKinsey $4.1 million to make, even though a 20-year-old programmer could have done it while doing vape tricks and listening to Smokepurpp. You make an account and find your slot at a participating pharmacy, clinic, or urgent care facility. Your insurance company will not consider that place in-network and you pay out of pocket or risk losing your timeslot. When you submit the bill for reimbursement, your insurer explains that the “sterile needle fee” is not covered, and that having your heart rate measured is considered an elective procedure. The bill is too much for you to pay. The insurance company hires a collections agency to hound you like a bear who’s developed a taste for human garbage. Ultimately, your medical debt is bought, collateralized, and traded for a profit by a Wharton graduate named Josh who eats iguanas with Jeff Bezos.
I’d love to say the night is darkest just before the dawn, but I don’t think it’s even sunset yet. This is going to be a brutal, brutal winter. Hang in there, everybody.