It’s time to head back to school! Have you gotten your children all the basics? New pens and a new lunchbox? Sanitizer, masks, and a Paw Patrol–themed hat that circulates air at the speed of light around your child’s face?
Sorry to break it to you, but your kid won’t be needing any of that stuff this year: There’s no way you’re sending your kid back to school this fall. You know that, right?
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Don’t worry about the wasted supplies. You can make a great monster costume with those masks — your children will have so much fun wearing them as they trick-or-treat this Halloween from your bathroom to your kitchen. And the sanitizer is great for science experiments (unless it’s the type that can kill you). Just think: While you’re focused on work, your 10-year-old can conduct a fun experiment in the kitchen to see whether hydroxychloroquine or hand sanitizer is a more effective treatment for Covid-19.
You seem upset. You actually thought we would open schools this fall.Where do you think you live? Afghanistan? Andorra? Austria? Belarus? Belize? Bhutan? Brunei? Burkina Faso? Burma? Pretty much any other country that begins with the letters C through Z?
No, you are in the United States of America. Other countries may be faring better in the battle against Covid-19, but America is the overall winner in the game of life. We may not have contact tracing or ubiquitous virus testing, but what about 24-hour gun shops and restaurant portions the size of a small nation? Show me another country that can get you a mattress delivered to your house in less than a day! And believe me, when you get the virus, you’re going to want a comfortable mattress.
These challenges underscore what’s great about this nation: We’re all connected; we’re all in this together! Which is why, if you’re a good person, you understand that you can’t send our nation’s teachers back into the schools to be killed by a bunch of germy kids.
Wait, hold up. Did I just hear you say you’re hiring a tutor for your children? Have you thought about the consequences for your community? Your country?
Look, this would all be a lot easier if you would just embrace losing.
If you hire a private tutor, you should know that you are exacerbating the already grave educational disparities in this country. I know your child has turned into a wolf after several months of homeschooling, and that you need to get back to work, but listen: If all of our children are left behind, rather than just some, then we are all actually ahead. Equality in this country is where we all lose, and therefore win!
Okay, good, you’re skipping the private tutor. You’re saying you will just rotate with the other parents in your pod. Each of you will teach the kids and make the pod accessible to poorer students whose parents can’t afford a tutor. That’s nice of you. And also very selfish. Do you not remember that we told you to stay home, and to not see anyone? Instead, you’re spitting out math lessons and coronavirus to a group of seven-year-olds.
Oh, so now you’re saying you’re not going to do a pod at all. You and your wife will just teach your children at home and muddle through the next three… eight… 200 months like you did last spring. Well, that’s a good plan… if you don’t care about destroying your wife’s career. We all know she’s the one who’s going to take on the majority of the childcare and schooling burdens.
Look, this would all be a lot easier if you would just embrace losing. Wives are losers, families are losers, the poor are losers, the elderly are losers, the young are losers. Californians are losers, Floridians are losers. And each and every one of us in between.
We’re a nation of losers. And we’re all losing, together.
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