Hello, everyone! Let me start by saying I hope that you’re all healthy and safe whether you’re sheltering-in-place or, in the case of Sweden, wondering what all the fuss is about stepping over the bodies of senior citizens to get to that next krog on your krogrunda.

Regardless, if you’re reading this I imagine you’ve exhausted pretty much every other option for entertainment and/or distraction available to you. I say, pretty much, because we all have that 5000-piece Illustrated History Of The Flat Tax jigsaw puzzle in the back of the closet.

Thank you for making this your penultimate stop on a “Only in the event of a freaking global pandemic” tour.

I don’t mean to be overly, if accurately, self-deprecating, it’s just these past 6 weeks have led me to become a little more introspective. I decided that if Shakespeare can write King Lear IV: Spawn of Goneril during a plague, I can sit down in isolation and…………..at least get to know myself better.

Set below is a transcript of what happened next, edited for time and everyone’s steadily loosening grip on their sanity.

Me: Thanks for sitting down with yourself and answering some questions.

Me: I just want to say that I don’t appreciate the subterfuge. I was under the impression we were here to record another “Mama’s Family Episodes” podcast.

Me: Sometimes we need to trick ourselves into doing the hard work. Is now not a good time? Do you not want to self-examine?

Me: Whatever, it’s fine. I don’t have to be on the couch for another 40 minutes.

Me: Great! We’ll start with the softballs. When’s the last time you wore pants that didn’t have an elastic waistband?

Me: You’re trying to trick me again, aren’t you?

Me: I’m asking the questions here.

Me: Pants only come with elastic waistbands, man.

Me: Okay, moving on. If you could be a tree, what tree would you be that’s cut down and pulped to help meet the nation’s merciless lust for toilet paper?

Me: I’d be that anthropomorphic one who records a bunch of PSAs telling everybody to chill the eff out. You know, that one with the fangs.

Me: Related question: Who’s your ideal hoarder?

Me: I’m gonna say “Paranoid-lite.” Terrified of the bidet industrial complex, but good humored enough to eat a cake shaped like a roll of Charmin and not lose more than 3-4 hours of sleep at night.

Me: Wonderful. Good warm-up. Let’s try a tougher one.

Me: Or, we could just record that podcast. Man, remember that crossover episode with “Small Wonder”? When Mama turned Vicki into a moonshine still?

Me: Remember what happened in 7th grade? With the yogurt and the sweat and the locker caddy?

Me: Um, I don’t recall those things ever commingling in junior high.

Me: C’mon, if there’s any hope of understanding yourself, that’s the place to start. Let’s break it down. You never liked that locker caddy, did you?

Me: Look, I wash my hands, I wear my mask. I’m a decent person. I deserve a pass on this one.

Me: When’re you ever gonna have this kind of time to pin yourself down? Why were you so sweaty?

END OF TRANSCRIPT