Rant #2,369: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

Yes it is.

And if I needed affirmation of that, I certainly received it right in my face the past two days, all generated by the mass hysteria generated by the terrible outbreak of the coronavirus.

As I spoke about yesterday, I was actualy hired for a part-time seasonal job with the Long Island Ducks Atlantic League baseball team, a league that might not start its 2020 season at all based on the pandemic's reach.

I am certainly not looking a gift horse in the mouth, and I thank the Ducks for having the faith in me that no other employer has shown in the more than five months I have been out of work, but getting this job at this time is like waking up on Christmas Day and not getting any presents.

Then yesterday, I decided that my son and I would go out by mid-morning and see what was out there in our local supermarkets. Since so many people were so selfish early on during this panic period, and since they pretty much skirted any laws of sanity and bought up the store store in preparation for 2040 and not right now in 2020, I had heard that certain items were on low supply or non-existent, so I took my son with me to not only buy for our family, but to buy for my elderly parents needs, too.

We went directly to King Kullen, the venerable Long Island grocer which is supposedly being bought up by a competitor and may no longer exist as "King Kullen" in a few months, although I have read that that purchase is not yet a done deal.

Anyway, we found about 90 percent of what we needed, meaning all the non-food items that we needed, we found. No problem, we paid for them, and moved onto another store to look for certain meat and chicken that both we and my parents wanted.

I decided to go to Key Food, another long-time New York stalwart supermarket, which has a beautiful store on the other side of town from me. I had been in the store several times, the most recent time was about a week ago, and even during this crazy period, they seemed to have much of everything, except toilet paper and some other items that my family and my parents did not need.

So we went there, simply bent on getting some chicken and meat--including hot dogs, chicken breast and some chicken dark meat items that my parents love--and we had absolutely no problem getting exactly what we came in for. In fact, I was able to get my wife some spicy sausage that she loves too.

We paid for our choosings, and went home, full of glee that we did not encounter much of any supply shortages. Sure, we might of hit the two stores just right, but whatever the case, everything was copacetic. All the panic shoppers--really the greedy, selfish shoppers--have made their purchases for the next millennium, so they aren't in these stores anymore, so all that we encountered were shoppers with their heads on straight, just looking to purchase what they needed and not stock up like they were stocking their own personal fallout shelters.

We came home, and that was that for the food, Little did I know that my day would later turn out to be a horror show.

I got a wonderful call from my son's work, telling me that yes, I should file for unemployment for him if I could, and on the other hand, yes, when everything gets back to normal, he has his job waiting for him. This was in response to an email I sent them late the previous day, basically asking for any advice they could give me related to my son's supposedly brief period of inactivity.

I felt so wonderful about it--and so wonderful about what the two people who called me told me about my son--that after the phone call was over, I sat there and cried like a baby. My wife and I are so proud of our son, the hurdles he has scaled and the challenges he has met and exceeded, that it all really hit me at once how great it is to be a parent to this fantastic young man.

After lunch, I decided to file for unemployment for him, and that is where my nearly seven-hour horror show began, and it still has no end as I type this up right now at about 7 a.m. this morning.

I tried and I tried and I tried, but the New York State Department of Labor Unemployment site is so swamped with activity, that I could never file a full claim for him. I could set up an account--which I did--but as far as fully filing for him, no way, no how.

I spent the better part of the afternoon trying, and even tried to set it up via telephone, but again, no way, no how.

I got to the last portion of the application exactly two times, and both times, when it said "Submit," I hit the button and it crashed on me, giving me a message saying I would have to start all over again. I did this through the afternoon and up to 7:30 p.m., and simply gave up.

I will try again in about a half hour, but I can't sit in front of the computer and do this like I did yesterday, because I have to take my father to his doctor today, not an emergency visit but a visit that cannot be postponed.

All this worries me down to the bone, but what worries me perhaps the most is that when I have to put in my weekly claim for unemployment this weekend, that I won't be able to do so because of all the heavy volume. And yes, I do worry about my son, who has worked hard and deserves some compensation for this work like anybody else in his situation does.

Who to blame for all of this? Well, we have a governor of this state who sits in his ivory tower and delegates the populace to do this and that on his orders, but without any idea that what he says and does has consequences far beyond feathering his own immense ego.

Case in point: yesterday, when people like me are in such a quagmire, he comes out with some bubbemeiser story about one of his wonderful daughters, who so bravely decided to forego her own spring break plans due to the coronavirus. Well, duh, isn't that what she is supposed to be doing, not congregating with others like some college age idiots are doing in Florida as we speak? I know he was using her as an example of what young people should be doing, but isn't that what sheer common sense would dictate at this point in time? And who really cares about his daughter other than him as a parent? How is this soothing the public's soul?

What a real doofus we have in Albany! (Yes, I know, I talked about my kid earlier, but I am not the governor of New York State trying to heal his constituents. There is a great difference.)

I hope that when his time comes up, New York State voters remember things like this, and vote him out, but they probably won't, because the voters of this state are among the most ignorant bunch I have seen, voting in people like him and others only to kick them to the curb at the slightest drop of the hat. We seem to do that better than anyone, so I don't think people will have long memories.

To paraphrase our lordly governor, things WERE once great in the state and the country until people like you took over, and now you are tight, things aren't that great.

And that is that from my neck of the woods. I will try, try again, hope against hope, and maybe I will actually have some good news for you on Monday.

Have a good weekend. I will speak to you then.