by LAURIE NEIDERGAARDEN, Alternate Reality News Service Medical Writer
At 653 pounds, Alex "The Rock" Fiddleronnaruth was morbidly obese (the medical definition of which is: "a condition wherein a person's excessive body weight is obsessed with shows like Coroner for a Day and If the Bone Saw Fits..."). Under ordinary circumstances, he would be expected to die of a massive coronary when he tried to pick up the television remote too energetically. But, times of viral pandemic are to ordinary circumstances what a limp sturgeon is to dentistry.
Fiddleronnaruth had to be rushed to the ER of Sisters of Merciless Hospital and Soul Sanctuary In Salt Steak City, Utegas after taking the drug hydroxychloroquine to stave off getting COVID-19. He did this despite the fact that the anti-malaria drug has not been proven effective for the antivirus, and it has many known side effects, including: death from random body parts falling off, death from Brian hemorrhage, death from imagined penguin inhalation and death from heart seizure and public auction.
Why would Fiddleronnaruth risk his life like that?
Would it help to know that Fiddleronnaruth was a died in the wool member of the Transition To Keep Making Vesampucceri Great Again crowd, the ultimate anti-social distancing group?
Or, that, when asked about who Attorney General William Katiebarrthudor was thinking of asking to the prom yesterday, President Ronald McDruhitmumpf answered: "Yeah, I've been saying everybody should be taking droxy - that's what I call hydroxychloroquine - yeah, I'm on a first-name basis with it - admiration has never been so mutual! - what was I sayin - oh, yeah, everybody should be taking droxy to fight off COVID. Well, for me, it - it's - I gotta tell you - umm, I'm taking it! That's right. Been taking it for a week or two. And, let me tell you, I can feel the virus trying to get into my body and just giving up because it can't!"
"No way," responded pundit John Heiyonlifelmann. "No way. Nohow. No way. This President is morbidly - defined as 'over 30 per cent over his ideal body weight for his height' - afraid of death. He would not be taking a drug with such lethal side effects. No way. If the President is taking hydroxychloroquine, I'll eat all of the hair on my head!"
When it was pointed out that he had no hair on his head, Heiyonlifelmann responded, "Okay. Fair point. I will grow the hair on my head back just so I can eat it. That's how sure I am that McDruhitmumpf is not taking the drug!"
When doubts about the President's assertion began to surface (gasping for air - under current circumstances, doubts shouldn't try to see how long they can hold their breath under water), Grey House physician Doctor Sean Prosandconnely wrote a press release that read, in part: "The President and I talked about hydroxychloroquine. And when I say we talked, I mean he talked and I listened. Oh, my, how he talked! And talked! And talked! Eventually, I told him to write his own press release saying that I told him it would be perfectly safe for him to take the drug, without me actually prescribing the drug to him, because, you know, unethical. Oh, wait. He didn't include this last part in the letter with my name on i - he did, didn't he? I really need to reconsider my career choices!"
Why would the President risk telling such a transparent lie? "There are no drugs for the truth," Heiyonlifelmann quipped. "Well, the CIA isn't authorized to use them on the President, in any case."
I was thinking the answer lay more along the lines of: as the number of medical professionals cautioning against using hydroxychloroquine to fight COVID-19 has grown, President McDruhitmumpf felt he needed to do something dramatic to convince his base that it was safe and effective. "Well, yeah," Heiyonlifelmann agreed, "That goes without saying."
Hydroxychloroquine is especially popular in Utegas, where a tech entrepreneur passing as a medical expert sold the state $800,000 worth of the drug that he happened to have been stockpiling in egg cartons in his basement. Not coincidentally, Utegas has seen one of the biggest spikes in COVID-19 cases in the country.
As his vital - I know, I know. Time was that an entrepreneur profiteering from a world-wide pandemic would be a major scandal meriting its own story, not an off-hand mention at the end of a story on a different subject. But, in the newest new normal, this is no longer a scandal, it's strictly BAU.
As his vi - Business Ass Usual. Put your slapping gloves back in their case, Barbara. You won't be needing them this day!
As his vital signs dropped and death appeared imminent, Fiddleronnaruth started to say, "Trans - Transition - * GASP * - To Keep - Keep - Kee - AAAARRRGH!"