He stood in the back-
ground distracted, deep
breaths of boredom, wan-
dering eyes and all this

in nanoseconds. He paid
no attention to what was
being said by experts and
when he got his chance

he jumped to the mike
and began to give advice
on how to avoid dying,
“Wash your hands. I

do. You kind of know
I’m kind of a fanatic
about that sort of thing,”
and then, in the middle

of a press conference
on the imminent danger
of a new and deadly
virus, he talked about

how the stock market
would recover in spite
of the opposition political
party. He came back

around to the virus to tell
us that the virus will die
out and we should wash
our hands. A psychiatrist,

interviewed on cable TV,
said in response that the
guy is a sociopath who
couldn’t care less about

the virus or its consequen-
ces. It was like having a
big, lumbering, fifth-grade
doofus stand on the stage

playing pocket pool until
it was his turn to tell all the
parents gathered together
for the PTA conference that

he needed to go to the bath-
room and that he would be
sure to wash his hands after
he dunked Jimmy Heard’s

head into the toilet bowl.
And then he waited for a
laugh, like he waited for
one at the emergency press

conference when he clever-
ly said he was kind of known
for obsessively washing his
hands, all this while he was

there to address the deadly
new virus that could mature
into a pandemic to rival that
of the 1918 Spanish Flu.