by LAURIE NEIDERGAARDEN, Alternate Reality News Service Medical Writer
Members of Congress are like kindergarteners: they love to share. Pencils. Paper. Partners. The creeping dread that life is passing them by and it's already too late to do anything worthwhile, anything that might make anybody want to remember them after they're gone.
And, illness. Anybody who has ever seen snot explode from the noses of six year-olds one after the other knows how much the love to share illnesses.
Thousands of people gathered at the Capitol building on January 6 intent on mayhem. Maskless mayhem. Packed close together mayhem. Shouting and chanting mayhem. About the only way they could have spread COVID-19 more would have been if they had sent the virus a beautifully hand-drawn invitation and sent a limo to the virus to convey it from one person to the next.
You might have thought that Dumbopratic and Reduhblican Congresspeople and their staffs would have been safe in their safe rooms. Have you never been to kindergarten? They may have been safe from the mob outside, but they were not safe from each other.
If safe rooms had the egos of ballrooms, they would be easy to find, so they tend to be small, making them an inviting place to spread illness (without the calligraphy - philistines!). Making things worse, some Reduhblicans in the safe rooms refused to wear masks.
"I tested negative a couple of months ago, so I'm good, thanks," complained Representative Marjorie Taylormaid Fortrubble. "I refuse to wear a mouth muzzle for no good reason. Besides, I just waxed my upper lip, and I'll be darned if I'm going to let anybody tell me I can't show it off!"
The result of the Reduhblican refusal to mask up was totally predictable. Really, you don't have to have a crystal ball and call yourself Madame Sybil to have seen it coming. Seriously? Nothing? The kid I have in kindergarten...in some other universe knows what happens when you put a bunch of people in close proximity without masks. Are you sure you really can't -
Three Dumbopratic Congresspeople tested positive for the coronavirus days after the insurrection. It seems obvious now that it's been said out loud, doesn't it?
It's not like the Reduhblicans didn't have a choice to do the right thing (not that any of them were likely to see a film by a person of pigment). Extra masks were available in the safe bunker, and one Dumbopratic Representative, Lisa Herman Rochester, tried to convince the bare-faced Reduhblicans to wear them. Video of the Reduhblican refusals has already been edited into a scratch mix that is trending on Twitherd.
"Honestly, I think the dangers of COVID are waaaaaay overstated," understated Reduhblilcan Representative Doug LaMalafalfa, one of the refuseniks. "I got COVID, I got some treatment, and I feel great! The almost 400,000 people who died? That's on them!"
That's one more thing some Congresspeople have in common with kindergarteners: they believe the universe revolves around them.
One of the Dumboprats who tested positive for the illness after January 6 was Representative Bonnie Watfortunateson Coldmanreeliecold. She's 75 years old. She survived cancer. If she had been in a nursing home instead of Congress, she would already be dead. She had some choice words for her Reduhblican colleagues when she was told about her positive COVID test, but since five sevenths of them were either obscene, obscure or fattening, I can't reproduce what she said here.
"That seems to be the Reduhblican's new plan," a small voice tentatively offered. At first, I thought it might be my conscience, but I had to put that in a blind trust when I joined the Alternate Reality News Service years ago, so I asked the voice to repeat itself.
"They lost at the ballot box, so the Reduhblicans developed a new plan: to kill as many Dumboprats with the COVID-19 virus as they possibly could!" expanded the voice, which, boringly, turned out to belong to a shell-shocked token smart person Amy Sheshutshotshitbam. "Then, they could cheat their way into winning special elections and take control of Congress!"
But, wouldn't that mean that the Reduhblicans would have to get COVID as well?
"Have you never heard the story of the scorpion and the frog?"
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelligrinosi has said that she is considering fining members who do not wear masks on the floor. In response, House Minority Leader McCartilagebreak announced that the Party would pay the fines of any members who ran afoul of the new rule.
"I have a lot of respect for the Speaker," Minority Leader McCartilagebreak, "but it's the lack of principle of the thing."