“I’m back in Maine now. I don’t know for how long.
Wash your hands. Protect yo’ heart.”
— Jennifer Finney Boylan

He thought back to those carefree days when you could buy stuff. When soup was still a thing. Toilet paper? All you could tote. Soap? Duh. But that was then.

This was now.

“This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper,” T.S. Elliot wrote. And now here we were, debating how many clowns we would allow to gather in a clown car.

But life at the bird loop ambled along unscathed, a daily respite from Salazar’s screech. If anything, the people seemed friendlier. Had they re-evaluated their lives and counted their blessings? Were they basking in the joy of the sun’s return after the deluge? Were they all roaring drunk, the byproduct of the drinking game where you take a shot whenever Salazar says something stupid at his morning news conference?

Mister Pants wasn’t sure; he was just thankful for the refuge. But he worried there was still no word from Ernie, Lost in America, wherever that was.

The Bowser Boys filled in admirably, given their demoted status. 5k of fartlek. Trash can to trash can. Dust to dust. Trust Uncle Hal. It all seemed too easy.

Easier than finding Purell, anyhow.

What was ahead? Chaos, maybe. A happy ending, unlikely but still possible. A Friday long run? Most certainly.

Mister Pants grudgingly stretched, waved goodbye to the herons, and resumed his futile search for a can of soup.

Wash your hands. Protect yo’ heart. Guard your soup. Life is about learning lessons.

Not with a bang but with a whimper …