According to Hofmann: Down the DIY rabbit hole
A familiar tune in the past few weeks is being diligent with personal hygiene by pretty much staying as sterile as a brain surgeon about to conduct a craniectomy and staying twice as drunk, too.
So, of course, the general public does what it does best during these trying situations, which is lawfully looting the local stores for milk, bread and toilet paper like we鈥檙e in the path of a widow-maker blizzard.
However, the number one item disappearing from the shelves is hand sanitizer. Actually, it鈥檚 probably second, but I think it鈥檚 more appropriate and more fun to say that toilet paper takes the No. 2 spot.
Anyway, imagine you鈥檙e shopping (or, as I now call it, a 鈥渟upply run鈥�) and you know that you desperately need hand sanitizer because there鈥檚 no other way to clean your hands, but the shelves are totally bare of hand sanitizer 鈥� even that crap that鈥檚 heavily scented to smell like something that doesn鈥檛 really smell like that scent is gone.
At that point, most people would panic, a few people will picnic, but there are those resourceful folks out there who know a thing or two and decide to go on the internet to look up a thing or two because otherwise they鈥檙e as clueless as the people picnicking during a pandemic.
鈥淗ow do you make homemade hand sanitizer?鈥� you ask Google or Siri or Alexa or Scary Phone Computer That Talks Back, if you鈥檙e over the age of 80.
It鈥檚 easy, according to the internet. All you need to do is mix rubbing alcohol with aloe vera gel and you have an abundance of homemade hand sanitizer.
For the next supply run, you add aloe vera lotion and rubbing alcohol to your list along with other necessary items like batteries, toilet paper, microwave popcorn, a cotton candy machine and hatchets.
However, your gut sinks when both the aloe vera gel supply as well as all the rubbing alcohol is gone; then you want to go and just see if they restocked hand sanitizer, but you get that sinking feeling again that you just missed it as evident by the assaulted store employee on the ground next to an empty box of hand sanitizer.
At that point, things start feeling real because you haven鈥檛 actually sanitized your hands for a week.
Thank goodness we live in a day and age where you can access the internet on your cellphone and figure out what you need to purchase to make your own aloe vera gel and rubbing alcohol while at the store.
Then you find out you need to obtain and/or grow an aloe plant from which to extract the gel. Of course, by the time that plant grows, we鈥檒l be at the point in the pandemic where the zombies have made their appearance.
On the other hand, rubbing alcohol can be easily made by indirectly hydrating propylene by using water and a catalyst at high pressure, but who really has the patience for that?
So, when your DIY journey hits a snag like a potato hitting a brick wall after being launched out of an air cannon, you go back to the internet. This time, though, you鈥檙e not learning how to make hand sanitizer, but alternatives to hand sanitizer.
Lo and behold, the entire internet unanimously stated (with the exception of a few conspiracy theory websites) that soap and water are the best alternatives to hand sanitizer and, in most cases, hand sanitizer is actually the alternative to soap and water, if you subscribe to other wacky conspiracy theory websites like the Centers for Disease Control.
Just remember the recommendation to wash your hands while singing the song 鈥淗appy Birthday鈥� twice. If that seems like a long time, sing it to a birthday boy or girl named Ed or Jill, and avoid names like Anastasia, Napoleon or John Stamos.
With that solved, I know your next concern is your No. 2 problem, to which I would say the answer is more fiber, but then you have that other No. 2 problem mentioned earlier, which is the severe lack of toilet paper in the stores and how to find alternatives to toilet paper.
I would have to suggest going back to the internet to find toilet-paper alternatives, which can be a truly terrifying experience in the more shady places of the worldwide web, so don鈥檛 do it alone.
According to Hofmann is written by staff reporter Mark Hofmann of Rostraver Township. He co-hosts the 鈥淟ocally Yours鈥� radio show on WMBS 590 AM every Friday. His book, 鈥淪tupid Brain,鈥� is available on Amazon.com.