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Watch Your Back

I’ve been thinking about calamities for years and have some good advice related to the current COVID 19 epidemic. Here it is.

While you are focused on the threat that is in front of you, it is easy to be overwhelmed by a different threat that you may not be expecting. While you are avoiding a lava flow, you can be blindsided by an IRS audit. When you are dodging zombies, you can be abducted by aliens. While you are thwarting potential assassins, you can forget to turn off the gas and blow up your house.

As a public service, I want to remind you that fate has many ways to crush you. Devoting all your attention to one threat is a sure way to be overwhelmed by a different threat.

Now, go wash your hands. But don’t forget this is the time of year when bears come out of hibernation...hungry.

Don—Pittsburgh, March 20, 2020.

47 Responses

Viva

May 03, 2020

Hi! LOVE all your stuff (I’ve bought most of it)!
Anyways, I wound up buying twice the number of napkins I needed. Can you please show us how to make them into face masks?
I also soooo want Coronavirus merch!
A tout a l’heure
Viva

Norm Brown

April 01, 2020

Mark Twain, advised somewhat as follows…They danced blithely out to view the rainbow and were struck by lighting.
Your art and designs are indeed striking. Thank You
Norm

kathleen clark

March 27, 2020

i enjoy your covid drawing, it is now my new screen saver, i work in long term care as a nurse. please make some products with it. enjoy all your items.

Janet

March 27, 2020

Would you please make some of your 12 oz. mugs with this image in the bottom.? Like, “I just finished my coffee, oh crap, coronavirus”!

Ellie S.

March 27, 2020

Thanks for putting it all into perspective for us! …and for all the giggles.

Valerie Lambiase

March 24, 2020

Coronavirus and earthquakes please ☺️

Tanya Bowser

March 24, 2020

I would love a sticker to commemorate the craziness! In the meantime I’ll keep an eye out for any rogue zombie aliens!

Leopold

March 23, 2020

Please please, coronavirus bandannas!!

Holly Fraser

March 23, 2020

I’m hoping you will create coronavirus stickers! :)

C Forrester

March 23, 2020

Very well said.
😊❤️✌️🤞🙏🍀

Janet Rigby

March 22, 2020

Will the Corona virus sneak into a design? I hope so. It’s the best reminder of the age and what we’re going through.

Kristine

March 22, 2020

All very good advice! I went to multiple stores the other day and cannot find any toilet paper. Can you send me some?

Dee

March 22, 2020

I just received my sets of small plates! LOVE THEM!

We all could use a heaping dose of silliness every day now. I get mine with my scrambled egg and greens and toast, thanks to the Giant Dodo Plate. ( My son and husband fight over Stink Eye)

Thank you for making us laugh!

Lisa

March 22, 2020

Kudos Don! Good to know common sense still exists. Perhaps you could develop a soap dispenser; I neglected to think not everyone understands the value a little soap provides.

Limell Lawson

March 22, 2020

Nice perspective that you won’t find anywhere else! ;-)

Jan

March 21, 2020

Thanks for that sage advice! My things could be worse mugs are the perfect things to sip tea from and laugh at the irony of the world. Plan for the worse and hope for the best. Meanwhile I am binge watching my fears away guilt free as a time passer. I shall be watching out for hungry bears now as well.

Jan

March 21, 2020

Thanks for that sage advice! My things could be worse mugs are the perfect things to sip tea from and laugh at the irony of the world. Plan for the worse and hope for the best. Meanwhile I am binge watching my fears away guilt free as a time passer. I shall be watching out for hungry bears now as well.

Jill Gasaway

March 21, 2020

Just received my mugs. Passing along to my dr/ nurse friends. Oh yes please- bandanas!

Jill Gasaway

March 21, 2020

Just received my mugs. Giving the whole box to my ER nurse daughter to pass along. Oh yes please- bandanas!

Laura Norman

March 21, 2020

Best advice I’ve heard yet! Thanks.

Amanda

March 20, 2020

At last same advice that makes sense :}

Denise Eareckson

March 20, 2020

I would love to be able to post this piece on Facebook—so funny!

Charlee Morris

March 20, 2020

Love your work and fun comments!

Renee Mestad

March 20, 2020

I received my dishes a few weeks ago. I smiled so much the muscles on the back of my got sore. I didn’t realize I had muscles back there.
I’m a physician in a hospital. We’re obviously stressed. I just bought a bunch of Don’s fabrics at Spoonflower to use to make face masks, because the fabrics are so darn cute and funny! A doc in Taiwan figured out how to make filtering masks DIY. I can’t use them for surgery, but they are useful for walking about in low risk settings. And if people make their own, they can send the surgical masks they bought on Amazon and are hoarding to their local hospitals.
https://mustsharenews.com/cloth-face-mask/

Cindy Jones

March 20, 2020

As always, thank you for your great advice.

I always remember this quote, attributed to Oscar Wilde:
“Things are never as good or as bad as you think they are.”

Stay safe everyone!

donna harter

March 20, 2020

I went to Chuck e Cheese and had the ball pit all to myself!
I am always looking forward to worse things, it means I have survived one more event.
Life is too short to not dance everyday. Stay safe my friends
donna.

Peggy Roesch Wallan

March 20, 2020

(d) All of the above.

(That was an easy test.) Your post and all the comments have cheered me up enormously. I’m in Washington State, where things are nerve-wracking as it is; I’m commuting between home and my sister’s home 30 miles away (she has cancer, I’m her caregiver). Stores run out of TP and sanitizer and food as soon as they’re stocked. We’re running low on essentials … but gosh darn it, WE HAVE OUR CALAMITYWARE!!! Love to all of you. Get cracking on the CoronaWare.

Tuzi

March 20, 2020

Love your designs and really love your coronaball. My motto is, “If it’s not one thing, it’s 20 things!” Looking forward to your next creations!

Sara

March 20, 2020

I agree with all the suggestions for virus/disease plates!

David Hawkins

March 20, 2020

RIght. While reading the virus updates on your phone, don’t step into the road in front of that grocery delivery truck!

Debbie Allen

March 20, 2020

Love your insights. Let me know if the shirts become available. Those of us with a twisted sense of humor would buy them up like toilet paper.

Stephanie

March 20, 2020

It has never occurred to me to be afraid of fresh-out-of-hibernation bears before, but maybe we will be ok since humans all over the earth are going into hibernation ourselves. There will be some very confused bears out there.

Gael

March 20, 2020

Thanks for the smile!

Virginia

March 20, 2020

You made us laugh today! Forget studying to become a rocket scientist who does autopsies and studies cosmic rays as in The Crawling Eye. Just keep us smiling. It’s what you do best.

Mary Edna Benner

March 20, 2020

Thanks, Don, for your perspective on disasters.
Thanks for your illustration of the Corona ball. It adds some levity to the horrible.

Mark

March 20, 2020

I think there is a new plague plate in our future, and since cats can’t get it, the one in the foreground should be smiling :)

Tiffany

March 20, 2020

Please keep the ridiculousness coming :D.

Anne

March 20, 2020

Seriously, we need Corona shirts, that say on the back “Watch your back”. And a definitely plates featuring all our favorite microbes (smallpox, ebola, dengue fever, corona, SARS, MRSA, etc.) You know we want it!!

Laura

March 20, 2020

I need a badbandana with this drawing of the coronavirus image on it!!! I practically squirted my tea out my nose when I saw it. I’ll take a sticker with it too, for my water bottle….

Glynis

March 20, 2020

This is so very true, thank you😀 Corona stickers? 👍👍…..and Shelley, I agree with you!

Blaine Galonski

March 20, 2020

How about a hank/bandana.

judith brandel

March 20, 2020

Thank you.

Dawn

March 20, 2020

Thanks for the perspective!😂

Jean Andersen

March 20, 2020

I suppose I need the dinner plates now, to complete my set. Current conditions require more than a coffee cup and small ant covered muffin plate, lol.
Wise words, Don.
Thank you.

Shelley

March 20, 2020

I would love to see crazy illustrations with the corona ball. Masked aliens playing soccer, baseball or volley ball? A pool table with lots of little Coronas. Dragons burning up the microbes. Keep laughing.

H.

March 20, 2020

Where/when can we get a coronavirus sticker drawn by Don? :)

KathaLee

March 20, 2020

Have ordered “Things Could Be Worse” mugs. We began as a family celebrating each day with a proper tea. I anticipate the surprise when tea is served in your delightful creations. Thank you for the opportunity to smile in the face of adversity!

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