On Easter—check that—or two weeks past, or whenever I am an older man than I am today, I shall wear purple with a red MAGA hat that will suit my mood.

I shall emerge from my fetid shelter, eyes blinking from the heavenly sunshine, nose itching from the fresh air and I shall spend my stimulus check on some kick-ass cannabis. The sobriety of my middle years shall vanish in a toke of smoke. The angels will cry, “Thank you for pot smoking!” Amen, dude.

When I am weary from hobbling to church on my atrophied legs I shall plop down on the pavement and bark at passersby. “We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself!”

With pleasure I shall run my walking stick up against the sides of the heads of those pessimists who oppose the lifting of the restrictive quarantines and who worship scolds named Fauci and Gates rather than saints named Trump and Pence. As I deliver my beat downs, I shall remind them that the economy will come roaring back “like you’ve never seen it before.”

I shall proudly show the world that just like Boeing and American Airlines, one can grow even fatter on corporate welfare while, at the same time, laying off thousands of greedy, ungrateful employees who want to earn more while on unemployment instead of working for peanuts. Let them eat bread and pickles for a week while we eat three pounds of Polish sausage at one sitting while buying back a mess of stock options and building flawed airplanes.

And if there are those who cannot pay their rent, wear clothes that keep them dry, afford to bury their loved ones is it not their lack of planning that led to their downfall? Can they not set an example for their children?

And if the hospitals lack respirators, swabs and personal protective equipment is it not the fault of their local officials who should have known that coronavirus was going to be like a big thing? Aside from selling cluster bombs to the Saudis the government is certainly not a shipping clerk.

Two weeks past Easter, if my friends are still above dirt, conscious and not violently coughing up buckets of phlegm, I shall invite them to dinner. (I’m thinking something Mediterranean, maybe a lamb tagine and couscous. Certainly nothing Asian!)

After our lovely repast, we will reverently watch the daily coronavirus briefings on FOX News. We will cheer He who has risen day after day, so visibly weary from having to read scripted remarks and having to suffer the cautions of so-called health experts who care nothing for His economy or His investments. They make Judas look like Mother Theresa.

Yes, we will genuflect at the altar of alternative reality. (Sure beats all that depressing science any day.) We will kneel at the foot of He who has smote the devilish reporters that dare to question His leadership and who flaunt their cursed “facts” instead of obediently nodding their heads in affirmation and dutifully writing down His golden words of comfort. Curse them all, especially the nasty one they call Alexander. For Pete’s sake man!

For now, I shall hoard mega rolls of toilet paper, cases of hollow point bullets (just come and take it!), flats of bottled water, my signed copy of “The Art of the Deal” and my cherished beer cozies from Mar A Lago. I will keep my clothes and powder dry, and learn to properly wash my hands. Maybe even read an entire book.

So, people who thought they knew me will be shocked and surprised as I grow older during this pandemic and let it all hang out. But, then again, we’ve been cooped up for so long that we have become unrecognizable to each other. For example, because of the closing of non-essential businesses, I haven’t been able to get a decent pedicure in weeks. My toe nails are lethal weapons. My hair and eyebrows are a bird’s nest of tangled and twisted knots. Today, in an act of macro aggression, some out-of-school kid called me Unabomber. Punk.

If, by some miracle I survive, I shall wear purple or, what the hell, I might even don a lavender sash because, well, don’t ask and please don’t judge. And, finally, on that most holy of days, can we please, for god’s sake, pack the seats of stadiums throughout America and at last begin the baseball season?

Writer Stephen J. Lyons is sheltering in place somewhere in central Illinois.