Random thoughts, April 11.

Until I got a ginger cat I had no idea there were so many ginger cats.

***

Linda has a doll blank that's lopsided.

"Make one for me," I said.

So yesterday she asked if I wanted to to be a male or female.

"I want Bettie Page."

"I don't have any black yarn."

"Just as well," I said.

***

I'm very glad now that my business model doesn't depend on game nights or Magic tournaments or book clubs or any other social gathering.

I have but a single chair in the corner.

I'm a store and I've always been a store and I will always be a store.

***

On one of the comic forums, someone was speculating about when we'd come back and how it would happen.

Someone else popped up and said, rather rudely, "What's the point of planning when we don't know anything?"

There's always that guy. And it totally mystifies me. That's WHY you plan--because you don't know what is going to happen. If nothing else, what harm does it do to brainstorm? It's not like we have anything better to do.

But me--I constantly speculate about everything, and then I monitor what actually happens and try to compare it to what I thought would happen.

Often, when I speculate about the fate of other stores, it's not because I wish them harm but because I want to check my own guesses.

***

So having said the above, what do I think is going to happen?

1.) I'm betting we'll be allowed to open our stores on June 1 give or take a week or two.

2.) We will still be asked to stay at home if possible, and if you simply must shop, to take precautions. Stores will put in distance markers, or smaller stores like me will simply ask people as they come in the try to keep a distance.

3.) Clerks will be wearing face masks. I'm going have disinfectants at the counter and tell each customer that I will be washing hands between each transaction.

4.) Business will boom for a couple of weeks and then trail off, eventually landing at a lower level of sales. But the possible range here is anywhere from a BOOM to a BUST.

5.) Most businesses will survive but will be wounded, which means they will slowly but surely start closing over the next year or so.

6.) New businesses will not pop up immediately. Those existing business that can stay healthy will have a good head start on the competition. (Cold-blooded, I know, but there it is.)

7.) Costs will moderate--rents, prices of product. There'll be some bargains to be had.

8.) Deaths will start speeding up in the fall. There will be a second round of closings, this time a 30-day national one. (I won't talk about the scary politics of that happening during an election.)

9. People and stores are more resilient than they think.