Heather Martin’s recent column moved me more than anything else I’ve read about our social response to the pandemic. Humor. What a weapon against fear! Right then, my thinking changed – a lot.

Lots of us fear running out of hand sanitizer, but the liquor shelves have plenty! Bacardi 151 is 75% ethanol, which is a listed coronavirus killer in EPA’s “List N” of antimicrobials. In fact, 60% ethanol is a viable weapon, too. So, if the household section doesn’t have what you seek, wander over to the glass-bottle section and find something useful. And, if you overstock your household with it, you can always dispose of it later by drinking it, unlike regular hand sanitizer. And in a pinch, you can use it as fuel; it burns quite well.

Our overriding fear is, what? Running out of toilet paper. Seems irrational, but just look at our behavior over the past three weeks; those shelves are empty. People have even resorted to using tissue paper, wipes, paper towels (ouch!), diapers, old T-shirts, whatever, but each of those causes problems in sewerage systems. In fact, Portland’s sewer and water staff begs you not to use those substitutes because they don’t break down like good old TP.

So, what’s thin, strong, biodegradable, the right size and readily available that we can use? How about lunch meat? Seriously, we’ve all had cheap roast beef lunch meat that was too tough to chew but I bet it wouldn’t tear. And the slipperiness of bad salami would be a lot nicer than a scratchy paper towel in the nether region. It’s also cheaper by the pound than TP.

We’ll conjure up more fears as this pandemic grinds on. What’s not a given is that we can only suffer. We can laugh, too, in the face of fear.

Lisa Miller
Scarborough