Originally Posted by a friend

Dearest Friends,

In light of the flurry of emails I have received from corporate entitles purporting to care about my particular circumstance with respect to the COVID-19 apocalypse in the hope of clawing one more air-mile, hotel night, Bahamian cruise...roll of toilet paper before humanity descends into the abyss - I thought it might be a good idea to reach out to each of you to make sure that you know that in the event that you are, or "are not", sharing entertainment services with me, e.g., Netflix, UVerse, HBO-GO, Amazon, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Economist, National Geographic, etc., I am fully committed to making sure your entertainment experience is uninterrupted throughout this calamity.

Distractions matter, and we can only look to Trump's Twitter feed for so much solace during this time of need. God forbid we are left with nothing to do but ponder the precipitous status of our 401K, mortgage, children's college fund, rapidly emptying liquor cabinets, and / or job security. Please make liberal use of your access to these services to deflect stress, but also, please follow a few ground rules -

1. In the event that you receive a message indicating that too many users are currently logged on, take a break, maybe go take on that home / personal improvement project you have been putting off for the better part of the last decade(s) - organize the garage, do twenty...or five push-ups, clean under the couch. I promise, the next season of Narcos will be waiting for you when you get back.

2. DO NOT under any circumstances use this lapse in entertainment as an excuse to travel to a crowded public place. Do not lick things just for the "thrill" of it - subway poles, religious artifacts, shopping cart handles, etc.

3. In the event that your particular entertainment service is still unavailable, please do remember that you should always have access to Iron Sky: The Coming Race and Krull on my Amazon Prime Video account. That should be enough to get you out of your dark space and focused on something infinitely more constructive. If not, try Idiocracy.

In closing, we will get through this together, remotely, but together(ish) - or really, and more likely, on a shared corporate Zoom link because we have been forcibly quarantined in our own homes.