Remember back in 2019? When we thought, “what a bad year we’ve had,” and couldn’t wait for 2020 to get started? What is it the kids say these days? Ah yes, ROFLMAO.
We began the year in January with optimism. We tried to opt out of World War 3 with a gift basket. We decided to completely eliminate Burlington from the state. We had big plans for the year.
We began to worry in February that maybe things weren’t going to pan out for us, especially when Tom Brady made some upsetting decisions, but we still had some hope. We went to parties. We contemplated getting new job, or moving to new houses. We had no idea that the rest of the year was going to pass in one long, horrific blur starting in…
March. Ugh. We got word that some virus was heading our way. We didn’t have any actual, you know, cases of the virus, but it didn’t stop us from buying all of the toilet paper in the state overnight. South Canada closed its borders and now we have no idea what’s going on up there. All the Pokestops were shut down. It was chaos.
But we were promised that it would be over by April. Spoiler alert: It was not. Everybody got laid off, including us. Only “Essential Persons” got to go outside. The government promised to send us money, but then kept delaying it for stupid reasons. People were drinking bleach, or doing whatever they heard last to try and kill COVID-19, and there was no end in sight.
We were pretty sure that things would go back to normal in May, so of course they didn’t. Instead, we tried to see how many people could fit into one unemployment program. There were some benefits to the pandemic, such as fewer people being probed by aliens, but in general we were sick of it. Some restrictions started to lift, but things still pretty much sucked.
By the time June rolled around we were feeling smug about totally nailing our pandemic response, so we moved on to solving racism. We had riots. We yelled at the police. We fired the police. We defunded the police that were left. We painted things on the road. And once we were reasonably assured that the problem was solved, we moved on to…
July, arguably the best month for us. Our COVID numbers were way down. We were getting ready to re-open things. I mean, the rest of the world was doing terribly, yeah, but Vermont was sitting pretty.
By August we had tourists again, schools were getting ready to re-open, and Jerry Falwell, Jr. left the public eye to focus on the family pool boy. People were visiting with each other, confidence was at an all time time high, and so we plunged blindly into…
September. Suddenly things didn’t seem to great. We were all sick of restrictions. Nobody wanted to wear their masks. Ruth Bader Ginsberg had the temerity to die. Things were looking bleak. But they would get bleaker still.
In October COVID-19 started to take down the federal government, which didn’t seem to affect their effectiveness at all. Dating was hard. Racism was back somehow. All of the gains we had made over the summer seemed to be evaporating quickly. And yet we were still doing better than everyone else, which was very sad.
At least in November we got that pesky election over with so we wouldn’t have to hear from Donald Trump anymore. No, instead we get to hear from Rudy Giuliani, which is somehow worse. And they still haven’t conceded the election, so I guess technically it is still going on? Jeezum crow, is this year over yet?
Nope! We still have December. In which we try desperately to focus on something other than the pandemic, which is still getting worse every day, FYI. Schools are bad. Government is bad. Even Christmas was bad. Nobody got to see their families, Santa got COVID, and all the toilet paper was sold out again.
So now, on this last day of 2020, we look forward, very carefully, to a new year starting tomorrow. We’re cautiously optimistic. There’s a vaccine. Nobody seems to be talking about the murder hornets anymore. I’m not saying it’s going to be great, because I don’t want to jinx it, but all I’m saying is that it won’t be 2020 anymore. And for now, isn’t that enough?
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