We had time and space and freedom, / We had love and peace to spare / Though we ran out of things to smoke and say and eat and wear / And the morning of the avalanche / The Yeti kidnapped Blanche / And took her to his cave up in the Rockies. – Colorado, by Christopher Guest, Sean Kelly, and Tony Hendra, 1973

I will concede most of us are going crazy from the COVID lockdown. For a social Darwinist like me, though, is there is a bright side. Those who are not going crazy are out infecting and being infected by their fellow science deniers. As my father often told me, “you always gotta learn the hard way, don’t you?”

Uh-oh. There goes another chunk of my bleeding heart liberal street-cred. Well, easy come, easy go.

I feel sorry for the kids, although most have made out pretty good. Every politician claims the kids are desperate to go back to a real school. Yeah, you betcha. I have no doubt a small group of tiny freaks do feel that way, but the rest are just pissed off they’ve run out of things to do and friends to do it to. It’s the parents (certainly not the teachers, as they tend to value life) who want real school to start. They feel they have earned the right to chose sanity over safety. But parents already knew they made that sacrifice the day they decided to have kids, so um tut sut, mofos. You people brought these beings into this world, and you are obligated to keep everything kosher until they are old enough to change your diapers. Revenge is a dish best served old.

About a decade ago, we here in the lower Atlantic Northeast had us a Halloween snowstorm that was so overwhelming “they” had to cancel Halloween. That was tough on the kids, and I felt their pain. That wasn’t easy, as I was in a chocolate coma eating the goodies I wasn’t allowed to give out. Que sera, sera.

Fun Fact: The song Que Sera Sera debuted in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1956 masterpiece, The Man Who Knew Too Much. That’s kinda spooky. It won that year’s Academy Award for Best Original Song, and Doris Day was compelled to sing it right up to her death last year.

Once again, the powers-that-be are beginning to ban Halloween 2020 celebrations, so in about a month you can put on your trusty N95 mask, go to the closest Walmart, and buy your own chocolate coma for about ten bucks. See! There’s always a silver lining if you bother to look for it.

Our friends at the marshmallow Peeps factory threw in the towel. They are not making their holiday-themed “candies” this season. No Peep Santas, no Peep turkeys, no Peep peeps. Very few adults admit to eating them, and certainly not the health food freaks who want to live 120 completely miserable years while going to funerals proselytizing about their gastrointestinal superiority. Personally, I’m a quality-of-life over quantity of life kind of guy, but to each their own.

No Peeps, no Halloween. That’s how it goes. To make things worse, yesterday the fiends at Macy’s decided to replace their annual Thanksgiving Day Parade with a virtual Thanksgiving Day Parade. I don’t know what that is, but it beats the real thing. According to Wiki, “on November 25, 1993, strong gusts of wind pushed the Sonic the Hedgehog balloon into a lamppost at Columbus Circle. The lamppost damaged the balloon and the top of the post broke off while inside the balloon, dragging it down, injuring a child and an off-duty police officer in the process. In 1997, very high winds pushed the Cat in the Hat balloon into a lamppost. The falling debris struck a parade-goer, fracturing her skull and leaving her in a coma for a month. Balloon size regulations were implemented the next year, eliminating larger balloons such as the Cat in the Hat. In 2005, the M&M’s balloon collided with a streetlight in Times Square; parts of the light fell on two sisters, who suffered minor injuries. As a result, new safety rules were introduced. The M&M’s balloon was retired.”

And, please do not ask about Barney the dinosaur.

It’s quite likely that Christmas celebrations will be similarly restrained, assuming there’s anything left after the Trump-Stone agent provocateurs finish burning down America after the election. Some of the deeply obsessed will see these health and safety restrictions as an attack on their faith, but, again, I’m a social Darwinist who believes the fewer self-righteous assholes who lust for a shortcut to their Rapture the better. I’m into freedom of (and from) religion, so I guess they have a right to go off somewhere and COVID-kill each other if they feel such compulsion.

Otherwise, kids will still get their presents. Big-ass meals will still get cooked. And our chocolates will be real cheap. Christmas won’t be as green, but it will still be white.