How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Got Rich Because of Coronavirus

THIS IS SATIRE

A few years ago, I discovered Amazon’s subscribe and save program. I’ve had Amazon automatically send me shampoo, body wash, toothpaste, Lysol wipes, toilet paper, etc. every few months for three or four years. This entire time I’ve gotten a new shipment of everyday household items a few weeks before I used up my previous supply. I’m too lazy to cancel my subscriptions or change the shipping frequency, so I have acquired a considerable surplus of toiletries over the years.

It’s certainly much easier to tell Joe Sixpack to pull himself up by his proverbial bootstraps while I’m perched in this superior caste where the government does the pulling for me.

Chris Johnson

Like compounding interest, the effects of my misanthropy fueled agoraphobia have grown exponentially with time. Nearly half of my storage space is now reserved for surplus household items that I purchased with subscribe and save. Because I loathe going to actual brick and mortar stores, I found real beauty in those automatic deliveries. The 15% subscribe and save discount and 3% cash back for using the Amazon Prime credit card were just a couple of nice teeny tiny little perks, like the tits on Keira Knightley.

A few weeks ago, this was just an odd personality quirk that kept every woman I’ve ever met drier than moon dust. But ever since the outbreak of this horrific global pandemic, things have taken a considerable turn for the better. Every toilet paper and hand sanitizer shelf in the country is empty, and I’m sitting on a figurative gold mine of those items, so I think it’s safe to say I’m now a billionaire. Sure, most of my newly discovered wealth exists solely on paper, literally in this instance, but so does all monetary wealth, literally in those instances as well.

It’ll all be flushed down the same drain eventually, soiled with the same brown smears that symbolize their inherent value. But in the meantime, I’m 21st century wealth accumulation personified. A prepper version of Chauncey Gardner and none of it makes any sense. This is the new normal. Deal with it.

Obviously, I now consider myself amongst the wealthiest of society. One of three elites, if you will. I feel comforted knowing that I’ll be bailed out by the American taxpayer should any financial ruin come my way. It’s certainly much easier to tell Joe Sixpack to pull himself up by his proverbial bootstraps while I’m perched in this superior caste where the government does the pulling for me. Bootstraps are provided free of charge, of course.

You sir, look so small from up here – *full pinky in the air*.

But fear not, commoner. From my shiny mansion on the hill I will fervently decry all forms of elitism just as you do from your $350/month dump of an apartment, because I need you to think we’re the same. Then, much like a certain creepy senator from Texas with degrees from Princeton and Harvard Law School, I will fail to address the ugly, cynical irony of this rhetoric. It’s what we elites do, and you just wouldn’t understand. But you’ll sure as shit eat it up. Now get back to work and pull up those boot straps extra tight, peasant.

One thing I do understand, after accidentally leveling up from wage slave to filthy rich in under two Scaramuccis, is Donald Trump. I don’t like him necessarily, but I understand him. It reminds me of that time I took ecstasy on a party bus and listened to EDM music. I hated EDM music, still do, but dammit, 45 minutes after taking that pill I *understood* EDM music. And now I understand Donald Trump. We all thought we’d be billionaires one day, but I’m one of the hard working few who actually did it. Trump is my kind of billionaire. A poor man’s idea of a wealthy man. I would also like to spell my name in unreasonably giant letters and shit into golden toilets, fellow billionaire. Maybe someday Donny Jingles and I will have matching golden toilets to shit into, but he’ll have to humble himself and borrow some of my toilet paper to wipe his ass. Consider it the post-corona American Dream.

Real billionaires try to hide their wealth, but he blatantly inflates his then inflates it even more when caught in the lie. My rich ass can relate. I’ve bragged to everyone within earshot about my prepper level supply of anti-viral wipes, then doubled down with needlessly exaggerated tales of my toilet paper stockpile when they weren’t impressed enough. You might call that an embarrassingly transparent attempt to cover up my own deep seeded insecurities. I’d say you’re the one covering up your own insecurities, call you a pathetic loser, then quickly change the topic just like any legitimately successful person would.

Next topic.

The only downside to exuberant wealth that I’ve encountered so far is all the poors who suddenly want something from me. Sure, I was once one of them, but that was weeks ago, which might as well have been years ago. Like those few weeks around Christmas and New Year’s, time has an extra dimension of fluidity these days and nobody knows what day it is. Maybe something happened at CERN and we’ve all descended into the quantum realm. Someone should look into that.

Anyway, long lost friends and family are messaging me with sob stories about their “children” and being “laid off”. Inevitably they will all ask for a roll of toilet paper while I’m googling yachts and it’s pretty inconvenient to be honest. In these moments I’m reminded of a song from my plebeian days, when failing into upward mobility protected by the visible hand of government was still just a pipe dream:

“So tell me, what the hell is a fella to do?

For every million I make, another relative sues

Family fightin’ and fussin’ over who wants to invite me to supper

All of a sudden’ I got 90-some cousins”

I feel ya Em, I really do.

The meek ain’t gonna inherit shit.