Dear Editors,

WUTI$UPWITHTHEWORLD??? (Elon Musk’s 8th child’s name)

Is it just me, or has the world we’ve created for ourselves become even more unusual as of late? One might even go so far as to call it a bit bizarre. 

First, there was the COVID ABC’s, where the world’s financial aficionados demonstrated their knack at the alphabet to describe the economic recovery from the pandemic.  Early on, most economists decided we were going to have a V-shaped economic recovery, and when that didn’t pan out, they moved to a U-shaped model.  Next came the hullabaloo about L- and K-shaped recoveries, the latter of which has now been debunked. Personally, I can’t offer any insight into the L. If one had to weigh in on the debate, my guess would be that we’re going to start with a DOES-, followed by an ANYBODY-, followed by a REALLY-, followed by a KNOW-, followed by an!-shaped recovery.  Stay tuned.

If that isn’t enough to make your head spin, in January a box of cherries tested positive for COVID-19.  Yes, you heard it right, cherries!  Who would have guessed that indulging in scrumptious and incredibly delicious red cherries would be as high-risk as going on a Tinder date during a global pandemic?  If you think I’m joking, five people in China actually ended up in quarantine after being gifted cherries from a shipment that tested positive for the virus.  Seemingly nobody is safe anymore.  Given that piece of bad news, don’t “fruit” the messenger, as they say.

To further add a twist to the ordinary, when was watching your favorite video clip of LeBron James dunking on YouTube not enough?  Now, for the reasonable price of $200,000 you can own your favorite video clip of LeBron exquisitely dunking a basketball.  No comment.  Or as the kids these days say, NFT—non-fungible-token.  I guess one person’s trash is another person’s treasure, as long as you can remember your digital wallet password to pay for your new NFT Lebron James digital asset with your favorite cryptocurrency. So, to phrase that simply, I’ll stick to YouTube.

Speaking of cryptocurrency, did you hear about the guy who can’t remember his password to his high-tech flash drive and only has two attempts left to get it right?  I mean, you have to at least be somewhat empathetic with the guy, the flash drive has the keys to a digital wallet holding 7,002 Bitcoin.  Apparently, that’s like $220 million dollars on a good day.  Hopefully he tried the generic password 1234.  On the topic of Bitcoin, what actually is a Bitcoin?  Or, if you’re like me and can only afford 1/10 millionth of a Bitcoin, a Satoshi, what is a Satoshi?  I heard somewhere that Bitcoin and Satoshi were just new synonyms for really expensive air.  A store of value, the new gold; in other news, dogs can fly.

Speaking of soaring high, when did organic chemistry become the stock market?  Have you seen GameStop stock lately?  Once again, up to its old antics.  For those of you not familiar, GameStop’s stock chart looks like a nuclear magnetic resonance signal called a doublet.  Just google it or think back to the time that you weren’t asleep in an organic chemistry class and you’ll get my point.  On the GameStop notion, I’m no physicist but sooner or later the rough patch in the GameStop gravity relationship has to come to an end.  As the r/wallstreetbets crowd says: HOLD.  The worst is yet to come.

In other news, what’s this new pandemic within a pandemic I’m hearing about?  These days I don’t know what’s more prevalent, the new variant, COVID+, or Disney’s hot new streaming service Disney+.   Speaking of Disney+ and any other streaming service that ends in +, what exactly is the +?  First it was Turbo in the 80’s and now it’s +.  With all things equal, I’ve heard just about enough.  Time to make a run on the grocery store, clear the place out of toilet paper and hunker down before things get any weirder. 

Sincerely,

Michael Grotsky

Queen’s graduate with a Master’s in Science