That Time We Talked About The Coronavirus

This is episode number 80 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're glad that you guys could join us for this special edition of The Homeowner Show here in the freshly Cloroxed and cleansed Homeowner Show Studios.

It's been wiped down, cleaned, disinfected, hand washed.

Yep.

Foot rubbed.

Disease-free. That we know of.

I didn't rub your feet. I just threw that one in for some weird reason.

Maybe you ought to put that on the docket.

Uh, no. But something that's not gonna happen is I'm not gonna rub Craig's feet.

Well, yeah, hopefully not. I don't like people touching my feet anyway.

Really?

They're a little gnarly. Yeah, okay.

I'm on them all the time. I'm gonna take your word for it.

Yeah. So, so, but anyway, unless you've been living under a rock, a really, really big rock, you are probably well aware of the conundrum and the catastrophe and the hysteria that has, uh, taken over the world.

As, as the, uh, you know, famous Jeff Foxworthy would say, it was his early, uh, albums, it was pandalirium.

Pandalirium.

So yeah, man, things have honestly gotten a little bizarre over the last 24 to 48 hours.

Yeah, so what Kevin and I decided to do is sit back with a couple of glasses of an adult disinfectant and run through some basic information for your home to help you be a little prepared, to help you be ready, and just, you know, be prepared for this catastrophe.

Yeah, I mean, to call it a pandemic is exactly what people are saying. I mean, in fact, we're gonna link up a video of a guy that really knows what he's talking about. We'll talk about that later. But, you know, we really, we're sitting here, you know, as friends and talking about this going, man, there's something odd about this. In fact, we even said maybe one of the only other weird moments like this in our history was 9/11.

9/11, yeah. Or when the country felt like this. Like, yeah, it's not the same like tragedy sort of situation, but like everyone's just kind of feeling anxious, on edge.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and it's very different because over the last, uh, 24 hours, more things have been closed, canceled, put on hold indefinitely.

Yeah.

Um, than, than we could have imagined.

Yeah. I mean, this is, this is the first time— I mean, like, we just did a Disney episode like 2 weeks ago. Was that right? And that now all their parks are closed.

Every one of them, including, um, other things.

Like, as of tonight when we're recording this show, the one in Florida just closed.

Yeah. And Disney Cruise Line, no, no future destinations are being departed. Um, Also Paris, Disneyland Paris. So now at this point, every possible Disney option is no longer an option. So, but yeah, I mean, they've taken measures to even say that March Madness was gonna be fanless.

Mm-hmm.

So no fans were gonna be allowed to be in, in the arenas, which I thought was gonna be kind of weird to begin with.

Yeah.

But then they canceled it altogether.

So Oh, they just outright canceled it?

Oh yeah, it's canceled.

Okay.

So it's, it's gone. So that, you know, that happened. Um, and there, there's just a lot of things that have been being canceled. I mean, around here specifically, the Houston Rodeo was canceled yesterday, which is one of the biggest events in Houston every year. Yeah, it's huge. And my sister was even bringing her son to, to show a pig at the stock show.

Oh, was she really?

And I mean, there's a lot of money lost.

Yep.

And a lot of time invested. A lot of heartaches can be had with things like that. Um, my dad was just telling me about a family that, that I know, that their whole family, extended family and everything, had planned a Disney trip next week. Uh, they've been planning it for over a year, and they had to tell their girls tonight they're not going.

Yeah.

So This is just one of those things that, that we need to lean into and understand rather than sit back and say, well, this is whatever we want to call it.

Yeah.

And so tonight, what we're going to sit here and talk about is— we're the Homeowner Show— what do you do as a homeowner to protect your home, to prepare your home, and to ride this out, so to speak.

Yeah. We're going to go through some of the nitty-gritty, some of the stuff we got from the CDC and the WHO. But then, we're also going to try and turn the corner a little bit and say, OK, what's the upside of some of this that's going on? Before we get into the list, I know one of the catalysts that that got us into this was this Joe Rogan interview that both of you have— both you and I have now watched.

Yes.

As soon as I watched it, I sent it over to my folks and just told them, look, stay at home.

Yeah.

It's episode 1439 of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. It's a great podcast if you— it's not family-friendly, but he does a really good job bringing in a variety of guests. And this particular one, Michael Osterholm, he's an expert in infectious disease epidemiology.

Yeah.

And so it couldn't have been more timely. And like, it just happened to be that he had this guy scheduled on the docket.

Unreal.

And, and so he just, he basically went through and just like, like, look, here's, here's why this is such a big deal and here's why we're going to be dealing with it, not just for the next week. And this is, this is why the markets are responding the way that they are. These are— this is why countries are responding the way that they are, because it's really serious. Yeah.

You know, You know the saying, like, 87% of all statistics are made up on the spot?

Mm-hmm.

So, um, I, I don't know how true this is, but I heard a statistic the other day, um, that said 70% of the— of America right now, and this was a day or two ago, doesn't necessarily think this is as big of a problem as it is, right? Um, And 30% of the population does. They're taking this very, very seriously. Um, of that 30%, something like 80% of those people are in the healthcare organization, healthcare side of life.

Yeah.

Right? So the people that actually are, are understanding what viruses are in our lives, um, from a professional standpoint, those are the people that seem to be the most concerned about this.

Yeah.

Um, and, and, you know, it kind of makes sense because those of us who, who aren't in the healthcare industry, we're not— that's— we rely on them, right? You know, we're not, we're not educated. That's why we go to them. So, um, yeah, let's just get into some of this and, and talk about You've all probably heard, do this, don't do this. We still don't understand toilet paper. That's still a mystery to all of us, why toilet paper is the most scarce thing.

I actually have a theory on this. I don't have any basis for it. I honestly think it's a mob mentality at this point.

To me, it's the Peter Pan problem at Disney World.

are talking about it.

Yes.

And because so many people are talking about it, people are like, oh, so many people are talking about it, this is actually happening, even though people are joking about it.

Yep.

But then when they actually go and have that real-world experience at the store and they're like, oh, there's only like 2 left, I gotta get them, I gotta get them.

Yeah. And, and the reason I say it's the Peter Pan problem, uh, Peter Pan at Magic Kingdom is one of the longest, hardest rides to get on.

Yep.

Because Who knows why?

Who knows? Yeah, nobody knows why.

I mean, it's, it's neat. It's, it's different on some levels, but it is not the most thrilling. It is not the most imaginative thing in the world.

It was back in the day, sure.

But the— I think it's one of those deals where people know that it's gonna be a long line, so it's a long line.

Yep.

You know, people know that it's gonna be hard to get toilet paper right now, so everybody's got to have it.

Yeah.

So I think we wind up creating some hysteria that might be a little unwarranted.

People out there with bidets are just cackling.

They're like, ah-ha-ha!

Twirling their mustaches.

I'm the swirling saucer right now. I'm the one that's so smart. Here we go. Let's talk about some of these things. What can you do to protect your home? So the first thing that the CDC is gonna tell you, and a lot of this that I'm getting right now comes directly from the CDC website. I'm gonna link it up in the show notes. You can go read it if you don't believe me. Uh, we're just giving you another outlet to listen to rather than go and read. Um, first one is to have a plan. I mean, I, I think that this is true in a lot of stages of life. Like, if you have a plan, executing a plan

is pretty simple.

Yeah.

Going rogue, having no plan, winds up creating confusion and you feel out of control. So having a plan will keep you in control, and so you need to have some plans. We're going to talk about what some of those things like, uh, look like. Um, so one of the things, uh, that they, that they say to do is get to know your neighbors. If you don't know your neighbors, um, you need to get to know them a little bit. Um, there very likely could be a point in time where you need something. Uh, they might have it. They might be willing to share. Um, likewise, not just your next-door neighbors, if you have some sort of a

community webpage or, um, or Facebook page, I would encourage you to be a member of that. I would encourage you to be connected to your community. There are going to be people that have information about things that you don't have information about that they might post that could give you some, some information.

Yeah, Facebook groups I think are a really powerful tool in this, in these kind of particular situations, because there's a lot of— most neighborhoods now have Facebook groups. If you don't have a Facebook account, you can also use the Nextdoor app. I assume Nextdoor has a website. I've never used it, but I know that they have an app. Those are good ways to virtually get to know your neighbors and be aware of what's going on in your community.

A good example of this is, yesterday, the school that my daughter goes to, which everybody in my neighborhood goes to, closed 2 days early before spring break. People were putting stuff on our Facebook page in our neighborhood. That is one of the first, first ways that I found out about it. So I found out about it on our neighborhood Facebook page before I found out about it from the school. So sometimes information gets disseminated quicker through that sort of thing than any other place you're gonna find it.

Yeah, and, and, and that— I think part of this also goes into the have a plan. I saw recently on one of the, the neighborhood groups I'm a part of, uh, where a friend of mine was putting a post out to the neighborhood community saying like, look, this is, this is gonna be really tough for all of us. And I realize some of you who are on spring break this week are looking at next week going, uh, man, my kids are not gonna be in school again. Which, by the way, I mean, like, we live in a community where now all the schools shut down, all the events are shut down. Houston has— has Houston been declared in an emergency, state of emergency?

Yeah, on some level. I mean, that we're kind of in the place that Washington State was in a couple of—

Okay, so yeah, basically we're in a state of emergency. All public events have been canceled. Private events are still allowed to continue on, but they're discouraging them from being held.

Oh yeah, discouraging them. Specifically for anything over a size of 250.

250, yeah. Which I think that's probably why they canceled March Madness, because it probably takes a crew of more than 250 people to run those games.

Sure.

That being said, anyway, back to these, these groups, these Facebook groups. This, this particular mom was like, look, I have teenage daughters that are gonna be at home happy to help you babysit.

Oh, nice.

You know, and like, so like putting it out there, like We as a family recognize that this is going to be a struggle for folks. You're probably going to need to get to work. You don't have any short-term plans for your kids. We're here to help you.

Yeah.

And so that was that community sort of reaching out and going, you know, we don't know you, but like, can we help?

Right.

And that's why those— that's why those groups and those virtual spaces can be really powerful and helpful, especially in a time like this.

Yes. So when I say get to know your neighbors, I'm not necessarily just talking about your next-door people.

You don't have to take them a pie.

Right, exactly. Just kind of know, be involved in what's going on. Um, it's one thing to kind of seclude yourself from, uh, from large groups of people, but you need to kind of include yourself in places that can help.

Yeah.

Which, which is another one of the things you want to do is, is know what, uh, aid organizations are in your community if something happens, you know, you need something. kind of know where those aid places are. So, um, whether it's Red Cross or, you know, something similar. The other thing is, is it would be really important to know where your nearest urgent care is, right, or hospital. Um, if something does happen, you may need to be able to get someone to the hospital.

Um, which around here is not as big a deal. Not here, because we have so many hospitals.

They're on every corner almost.

But when you're in a smaller town, it's more important to know. I mean, it's not just that we have like many hospitals, we have many urgent care centers, we have, we have lots of places where we can take people who are injured or hurt or sick. Um, you know, you, you go 2 or 3 hours outside of here and that becomes a whole different story. Yeah.

So, so know how far am I going to have to travel?

Yes.

Do I have enough gas in my vehicle? I mean, think about, do I have, do I have cash on hand? There are some things like that that you need to know. Do I have some of these things available to me so that if I have to immediately take one of my family members to one of these places, how am I going to get there?

Yeah.

So just be prepared. Um, the next thing is, uh, to create some sort of an emergency contact list. Some of you have already done this, and that's good. Uh, maybe it's kind of built into the DNA of who your family is, but you know, who are those next people that you need to contact that you know can let other people understand what's happening? If that need arises. Pretty straightforward thing there. There's a lot of everyday preventatives that you should do probably more regularly. You should clean your house a little more regularly right now.

Disinfect.

Disinfect. I know that Clorox wipes right now are at a premium.

Are they?

Oh, yeah.

Dude, I've got some boxes I need to go peddle.

Dude, it's hard to find.

Are there really?

Right around here, yeah. Because people are recognizing, okay, one of the things I've gotta do is disinfect things. So if you have some, use them. Use them regularly. Couple times a day, you know, wipe down your countertops and your tables and your bathrooms and things like that.

Well, and this is something I tell a lot of my customers to do when they're dealing with issues in their kitchen. I mean, like, you know, if you don't have Clorox wipes, I mean, warm bleach water, yeah, can cover a multitude of sins.

Yeah. And, and if you don't have that, soap and water.

Soap and water is good. Yeah, it's better than nothing.

It's better than nothing. Keeping things clean is, is important. Um, avoid close contact with anybody that's sick. Doesn't really matter what kind of sick they are. avoid close contact with them.

And I think here's one of the reasons that that's good to understand is because even if someone's like, look, I've just got a cold, or look, I've just got a sinus infection, or whatever it is that's not the coronavirus, if you get that, then if you were to happen to contract the coronavirus, then you are now in a totally different category of susceptibility.

Your immune system is compromised at that point.

Yeah. That's where they're really starting to see the problem with this disease, is when it's compounded with other health issues.

Correct. In fact, you even heard a stat today that was pretty alarming.

Yeah. It was from somebody else, but one of the CEOs of the hospital here basically said that cancer patients have a 50% mortality rate with coronavirus.

50%! 1 out of 2!

Now they don't, they don't have that confirmed. There's not obviously not been like, you know, a peer-reviewed paper on this or anything like that. But like, he's— they're projecting from what they've seen and what they've, they've read and what, you know, these are, these are health professionals. They're, they're expecting that people with, with cancer have a 50% mortality rate with the coronavirus.

So it's pretty serious.

Absolutely. And like, that's pretty like lighthearted way to even say that.

Yeah.

And it's very serious.

Yes. And, and what's really interesting about this, Craig, is like a few days ago I was kind of like, guys, chill out.

Yeah.

I mean, calm down.

Slow your roll.

Yeah. And today I've got a different attitude.

Yeah.

And, and my attitude is still— and I want to be very clear on this— my attitude is still Protect yourself, but don't, don't be hysterical about this. I mean, if you're, if you're taking care of yourself and washing your hands regularly, trying to take precautions that the people out there are asking you to take, the likelihood of you being fine is pretty good.

Yeah.

So, so don't freak out about this, but There's a reason we're having this conversation.

Yeah.

Because people that know more than Craig and I do, and likely know more than you do, are saying take precautions.

Yeah.

So this is important.

Well, and like, so like you bring up one that I've heard a lot of people say, like wash your hands, right? And like, I think most people wash their hands the way that my 7-year-old washes his hands.

Quickly.

Quickly. And so the way I heard a medical professional explain it to me is if you're going to wash your hands, sing the Happy Birthday song twice.

Yeah.

That's an appropriate amount of time to wash your hands.

Right.

Because I mean, like, I see a lot of stuff on social media now where it's like, hahaha, I've been washing my hands since I was 4 years old, you know, whatever, guys. I think a lot of us get into a routine where we're like, OK, soap, water, rinse, dry, I'm done. But if you actually stop and try and sing the Happy Birthday song twice—

It's longer than you think it is.

It's longer than you think, for sure.

It's roughly 20 seconds.

Which feels like an eternity at the sink.

It really does.

For those that have spent most of their adult life washing their hands for about 5 seconds.

Or not washing at all.

Or not washing at all.

But let's be really, really clear, the number of men that I see leave the men's room without washing their hand is alarming. And by the way—

A lot of one-armed guys out there.

Exactly.

Washing their hand.

Yes, their hand. What's really funny, and maybe more, you know, crazy to me because I, I, I'm I, I guess I just have stupid expectations, is to hear women say that it's the same, you know, that a lot of adults just leave the bathroom without washing their hands. Okay, if that's you, please stop.

Also gross.

Also gross. Stop leaving without washing your hands and wash your hands longer than you think you should. In fact, um, today I was with my son and the daughter at, uh, the children's museum, and, uh, we were hanging out and they needed to go to the restroom. So we went to the restroom. We were the only ones left because place was about to close. So my daughter said, can I just come in the bathroom with y'all? I said, sure, no one's gonna care. So we get done and they start washing their hands, and they did what your 7-year-old does.

Mm-hmm.

You know, it's like splish splash, I'm done.

Right.

And so I sat there and I said, no, you're gonna— I'm gonna wash my hands with you. Mm-hmm. And we're gonna wash until I say we're done. And both of them were like, all of a sudden they thought it was a game. Thankfully they thought it was a game, but they were like, when are we gonna be done? And I was like, well, I'll tell you when.

Yeah.

And so, you know, make it fun somehow around your family. Yeah. Make it, make it fun. So, uh, And that kind of goes along with, with a lot of things, like genuine hygiene at this point is something you need to be uber careful about.

Yeah.

So, um, you know, cover your coughs, and not just with your hands, not just with the, uh, the old vampire, uh, they call it the vampire cough, uh, the elbow coughing into the inside of your elbow. Yeah, although that's better than nothing.

Yes.

Um, If you can cough into a tissue, that's your best option. Um, so just be clean around your house. There I go.

Yep.

Don't do that. Now, um, this is probably one of the most, uh, intriguing things to me that, that the CDC has said, and it makes a lot of sense, and that is to choose a room in your home that can house a sick person. Choose what it is, make it what it needs to be so that you can quarantine somebody in a room.

If you need to.

If you need to, you know, who knows? Hopefully you don't need to, but know what that room is and know what bathroom they're gonna use and try to probably make those things close to each other. In fact, it may be one of the most inconvenient things for you as a person But if you live in a home that has an ensuite, that has a master bathroom, that might be the most logical place to have a quarantine room because those things are self-contained. Yeah.

So again, which, I mean, like you mentioned before, it could be, could be really inconvenient. Sure. But it's what's best for everyone living in the home. Yeah.

I mean, so at this point we're all inconvenienced, right? Um, it would be better for you to sleep on the floor than to become in contact with someone that is infected.

Yeah.

So just kind of take care of yourself. Um, know about what's going on in your community. We talked about this a little bit, but, uh, specifically with schools know what they're doing with your kids. But a little bit further than that, if you become sick, let your school know. Um, specifically if your child comes down with coronavirus, let them know.

Yeah, yeah, because I mean, like, we— I mean, like, everyone knows this, schools are basically petri dishes for diseases. Oh yeah.

Absolutely.

They're just constantly swapping back.

And if you don't know, just hang around a school in September.

Geez. So, which I, I think is why we're seeing a lot of schools just like, like, look, let's just, let's just nip this in the bud.

Yeah, and we're closing.

Yeah, let's just close. We'll disinfect the whole building.

Yep.

And we'll, we'll check back in in a week.

Yep.

You know, because they, they realize that like the, the, the place where most diseases are passed from family to family is schools.

Yeah.

Um, and it happens easily. It happens all the time. Yeah. And like, you, you sort of know that like, oh, there must be a stomach bug going on at the school because everybody in my house has it right now.

Yep.

You know, and so, you know, while it's inconvenient for everybody, like, these are tough decisions that public officials are having to make. And, you know, that's why they're there.

Yeah.

They're there to make the difficult decisions, you know. And, and, and like them or hate them, This is, this is the hand that we've all been dealt.

Yeah, you know, it's one of those interesting things. It's like we love it whenever they make decisions that have— that benefit us, right? And we hate the decisions, and we almost hate the person that makes the decision whenever it inconveniences us, right? And at the end of the day, right now, a lot of these things are inconvenient, um, but honestly, smart people that we have put in trusted positions are making them. Yeah, so like it or hate it, at the end of the day, it is what it is. Kind of lean into it, live into it, and be smart, right? And so, you know, that's really where we're at with a lot of these things. Talk

about with your kids. My daughter came home and it's like, Daddy, what's the coronavirus? And, you know, trying to explain a virus to someone is— that has never heard of one is difficult. Am I gonna die from it? I don't think so. But how do you have that conversation with your daughter?

Yeah.

You know, 7-year-old daughter. Um, a lot of things like that that are just, um, they're tough. But, but have a, have a conversation with them and, you know, treat this as if it is a big deal because it is. I want to bust a few myths right now because we've kind of gone through a lot of things yet that I think you can do for your home. Is there anything that, that you think we could do that you've heard of or anything that we missed?

I don't, I don't think so. I mean, like, I think, I think some of the best advice is just to, to listen, listen to the professionals out there, ignore the people who are just jockeying for position in the news and really keep Be in on what, you know, look, look for the professionals out there. There's, there's a lot of them who are really genuinely trying to help people and inform the public. Listen to them and what they're saying and, and judge what's best for you and your family and act accordingly.

Yeah, you know, we mentioned Facebook.

Because I mean, like, because at the end of the day, and like, you know, here's, here's the big Homeowner Show disclaimer: you and I are not health professionals.

Never have been.

You know, I, I work in a field that is related to some health things, but like, I'm not a health professional. Yeah, you know, and you're not a health professional, but we can read the CDC website, the WHO website, just as well as anybody else and report it back to you. And that's pretty much what we've done today. And so at the end of the day, go look this stuff up for yourself.

Right, and go to trusted websites. I mean, honestly, and I hate to say this, and it's frustrating to me to even have to, the news isn't always your best source. I mean, CBS or ABC or Fox or CNN, unfortunately, they're reporting things. They're not necessarily the experts. When we talk about experts, we're talking about medical professionals. These are the experts right now. News anchors are not medical professionals. If they are, OK, listen to them.

Maybe.

But most of the time, they're not.

Listen to 2 or 3. You know?

Yeah. And so, you know, there's— it's kind of funny, um, on the WHO website, World Health Organization, um, they've got some myths.

Okay.

It's pretty, pretty interesting. So I'm just gonna run through them. We're not— I'm probably not gonna comment on most, most of them. That cold weather and snow cannot kill the coronavirus. So that's a myth? Yeah.

That it can?

No, apparently so.

Okay.

Apparently some people think that cold weather and snow can kill it. It cannot. Okay, so, uh, yeah, we can't. Taking a hot bath does not prevent the coronavirus. Okay, um, it cannot be transmitted through mosquito bites. This is not the West Nile. This is different. Okay, uh, hand dryers are not effective in killing the coronavirus. In fact, they are telling you—

Probably more better at spreading it.

Yeah, I mean, wash your hands and use a towel or a hand dryer or something to dry off, but wash your hands appropriately. Yeah, long enough, right?

Happy birthday to you.

Exactly.

Sing it twice.

Twice. An ultraviolet light or lamp does not kill the coronavirus, so having one of those in your home, okay, congratulations, but it doesn't help. Um, So let's go, uh, here, uh, spraying alcohol or chlorine all over your body is not going to prevent the coronavirus. Have you seen that video?

No.

Oh, it's out there. There's a video—

We will not be linking that.

No. Of someone like spraying their child down before they go to school with like Lysol.

Jeez.

Yeah, that, that's not gonna help people.

Which I think, I think corona is actually on the Lysol label. But here's the problem is like for From what I understand, again, not a health professional, is you breathe it in.

Right.

So it doesn't matter what's on your body, because you're not going to spray Lysol up your nose. And you shouldn't spray Lysol up your nose.

Ah, crap! I could have avoided that catastrophe. Well, think about it this way. Most people understand that there are different strains of the flu. There are different strains of the coronavirus. This is not the first coronavirus that we have ever come across.

This is like the 19th?

Yes, there's a reason that it's called COVID-19, okay? This is a new strain, okay? So just because the Lysol bottle says that it prevents the corona, or it disinfects against the coronavirus, does not mean it's this strain of the coronavirus. I mean, This thing was an epidemic recently, right? Like the last few weeks. Lysol did not update all of their cans from 3 years ago that you still have in your cabinet that say coronavirus on it, right?

Right.

Okay, now that we've got that myth busted—

Yeah, I imagine most people's Lysol cans at least 2 years old.

Yeah, mine is. All right, can regularly rinsing your nose with saline help prevent the coronavirus?

No. Yeah, you still have to breathe after you rinse.

Yes. Can eating garlic help prevent the coronavirus? Now, garlic is a healthy food. It is not gonna prevent the coronavirus.

It's also delicious.

It's also delicious on lots of things.

We highly encourage that here at The Homeowner Show, to eat plenty of garlic.

Yes.

It will actually, it will actually help keep mosquitoes from biting you, by the way.

Really?

Oh yeah.

Okay, well, there you go. Um, I thought they just didn't like me. Maybe it's because I eat enough garlic.

It could be. Who knows?

Uh, does it affect older people or younger people?

Yes.

Yes. Um, now one of the things, uh, that our new friend on the Joe Rogan Show says that I thought was really interesting is it seems to not, not affect children under the age of 19. So really up, up into adult age, it doesn't seem to affect them. Um, that doesn't mean they can't get it. It just means that they are less susceptible to fatal—

Yeah, it also doesn't mean that they can't spread it.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and again, whenever we talk about the older people, what we're hearing has a lot to do with, with people that are just weaker in general. They've got, you know, immune deficiencies, or, you know, it's just part of life. But, um, the, the con— there's a confirmed case in our area. There could be more that I don't know of, but at least one that I know of as of today, uh, and, and It's a male in his 40s. So older, younger, out there wandering around, male, female. Yeah, so there you go. Are antibiotics effective in preventing and treating the coronavirus? Did I emphasize virus heavily enough there? Are antibiotics, which is killing and helping prevent

bacteria, right? Not viruses. So antibiotics are not good against viruses. They don't work.

Yeah, so if you have any leftover antibiotics from your last bout with whatever, get rid of it first of all.

Yeah, yeah, don't, don't keep that stuff around.

Dispose of it properly.

Actually, a little, you know, PSA real here, uh, real quick here. Take all your antibiotics. Don't take 3 days and feel better and stop. Take all of them.

Take all of them. OK.

I don't have time for that.

Get off that soapbox.

I'm not even going to climb up on it. Any specific medicines that can prevent or treat the new coronavirus? To date, there's not.

There's not. They are working on some— what are they called? It's a shot that you get for the flu.

Oh, like a vaccine? Vaccine, yeah. They're working on it.

They're working on vaccines, but there's, there's none available at the moment.

Yeah, and, and it very likely will be a while before anything— I mean, there are scientists working around the clock on this from what I understand, but, and it's just gonna take a while. Yeah, it's gonna take a while. Um, and, and so, uh, again We're gonna, we're gonna link up these 2 websites that we've been using to kind of work through some of this in our own mind and understanding. I encourage you to go find reputable websites and read for yourself.

Yeah.

And find out more of the information than what we can give. But I think the thing we wanna transition to right now is, okay, let's say we get into a position where we are kind of quarantining ourselves because we're in a situation where large groups of people are no longer allowed. Maybe your, maybe your job says don't come in, work from home. Maybe the school that your kids go to cancels for an extra week or 2 or a month. Yeah, who knows what's gonna happen? But let's say you find yourself in a situation where everyone's at home on a day that you were not expecting to be home.

Or like in our situation where, I mean, like our kids are gonna be home an additional week.

Yeah.

You know, and I think, I think the initial response to that is going to be like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do with my kids? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Like, am I going to lose my job? Like all these, all these sort of panic things that go through your head and like those things could happen.

Sure.

You know, but none of them are like, you know, outside the realm of recovery. And so like, I think what most of us spend our working days talking about is, man, I wish I had more time with my family. Yeah, man, I wish I had some additional time off. to spend some time with my kids. Well, you know what? Here you go.

Right.

You know? And so like, what do you do? And so rather than worry about, you know, your diminishing retirement account or, you know, your loss of value through your stock options at work or the, you know, maybe the value of your property is going to go down because of this, or worrying about all those kinds of things, What can you do with this time that you've been given?

Right.

Which I think is an incredible blessing.

Sure, and let's be honest, anytime that you focus on negative, you're gonna feel negative.

Yeah.

You're gonna react negative, you're gonna be negative.

And if you have kids at home, which not everybody does, but like, let's say you don't, well, this is maybe additional time to spend at home with like your family or your spouse or your partner.

Yeah.

and, and actually get to spend the time that you've been talking about spending with them, right, that you've been saving up for. Well, now you have that time at home, right, to do those kinds of things. And, and so we, we actually ran into that situation today. And, uh, my, my wife and I were kind of— we were, we were— we had planned today and we, we knew that we were going to have all the kids and we were actually going to have some additional kids. Um, and we're like, what are we going to do? Because Like, we, we'd been paying attention to this whole coronavirus thing. We're like, well, we can't take the kids here, we can't do this, we can't do that, we don't— like, we can't responsibly do

those things. So what are we going to do instead? So one of the things that we decided to go do is we— it was, you know, this— it was a Thursday. We're like, you know what, let's go hit up a state park.

Hmm.

And let's, let's actually go to a state park where like they actually have like an entrance fee. Um, and I bet you we'll have the place to ourselves. Sure enough, we did.

Nice.

You know, so we actually went up to Huntsville State Park, and I think I was telling you earlier, we, we hiked for like 3 miles before we saw a person, man. And the only reason we saw a person is because we found the lake, and that's where everybody was camping who was on spring break and had planned on camping anyway, right? But most people were out kayaking and doing stuff. Like, we never came within 40 yards of another person. And so we, we, you know, we loaded up the dogs and we took the kids and we went hiking, and we went to the lake, and then we hiked We packed back, we got in the car, we came home, we

ate dinner. It was a good day.

You can probably talk about that tomorrow.

Yeah, we will. Our kids had a blast. We made some memories. I think that's kind of the— at the end of the day, where we want to land with this kind of stuff is there's lots of things that you can do at your home where you don't have to go to the movies. You don't have to go to these big gathering areas and do the kinds of things that you think you have to do every year. Spend a lot of money. When people tell you that you can't do things, you immediately go to those things. Like, oh, I have to do those things. Those are the things I absolutely want to do. Well, no, you have plenty of options. You can't go to the movies, but just about everybody has

Netflix or Disney+ or Hulu or Amazon Prime or something like that.

Or a DVD.

Or a DVD player. Something like that. You can make a movie night at home.

Yeah. Um, again, I, I was expecting— it's a normal day off for me. Thursdays are day off for me right now. I'm home with my son, and all of a sudden my daughter's home as well because her school canceled, uh, classes for today and tomorrow.

Yeah.

So I'm home with both of them, and we got out. I, I let him pick, go pick him a game.

There you go.

And so, and so my daughter picked out Sorry. All right, great game. It's a great game, and it's, it's a really good— like, we played the entire game. There were multiple times they wanted to quit, right? I mean, it's, it's the game of Sorry. You bump people back to the starting position.

Aren't you sorry you started it?

Yes, exactly. And we played the entire game the way the rules were written for a 5-year-old and a 7-year-old. some tough lessons that were learned today. And so at the end of the day, they learned how to deal with some difficult situations, and we played a game, and they would probably want to play it again tomorrow.

And did you win?

I didn't. I lost. Not only did I lost— not to lose— not only did I lose, I came in 3rd place. My son, my 5-year-old, he is ruthless. Oh, he is. Which But those of you that know my son, he's— it's not surprising, but he's, he's like, I'm gonna make this move and it's gonna take you back to the starting position. It's like, you know, you have other options. He's like, I know, but this one hurts you.

I've seen your son tackle kids like 2 and 3 years older than him. He has no fear.

Not unusual. Um, in fact, we, we had some interesting conversations today because he was a punk multiple times. And so he got in timeout one time today and I was like, okay, you're in timeout today because being a punk. And, uh, anyway, but, but you know, punk. Yeah, punk. I don't want to be a punk. Well, sorry, you are. So, um, but that's one of those things that honestly, like, how often do you get off work, get home, eat dinner, have time to play a game of Sorry, right, before bedtime?

Yeah, never ever.

It never ever happens. Yeah, maybe it happens on Saturday After— maybe you have an opportunity after you mow the lawn and you take a shower, and what do you want to do? You want to sit and do nothing, and now your kids want to play Sorry, and you're like, I don't want to, you know. Well, tomorrow you're going to wake up after a full night's rest and you're gonna have nothing to do. Yeah, play Sorry, you know, go to a state park, um, go out into your backyard and throw the frisbee. Do something.

Yeah, here's a wild idea. Have a conversation.

What?

Yeah.

A what?

With your kids.

Huh.

And like, I'll even throw this in there because this is something I really enjoy doing with my kids. And I think this is something valuable for like, you know, I'm gonna kind of get into the parental advice, which is really more your area, but like, I think I got a good one here. I love talking to my kids about their dreams.

Hmm. My—

Give me an example. Not their dreams that they have at night, but like, Like, which are also entertaining. But like, what do they want for themselves? What do they see for themselves? Because like when they're young, that changes all the time.

Oh yeah.

And, but the ones that don't change are the ones that are the most interesting to me. Like, what are they like really interested in? And like, once I have an idea and a handle on that, how can I help them foster those things and explore those things and find out more about those things so that I can help them find out whether or not they're actually interested in them or maybe it's just like sort of like a fantasy that they have. But like, I love talking to my kids about their dreams. You know, like my son has like zero interest in going to college. I have no idea why.

Interesting.

You know, and so like we talk about it all the time. He just doesn't really enjoy school. And like, I'm totally okay with him not going to college. But like, I wanna like, so what do you wanna do? You know, and he really loves working in the business. Like he's constantly asking, you know, can I go work with you? Can I go do this with you? job? Can I go work with, you know, my dad, Pawpaw, who's also in the business? Can I go work with— he loves working with my dad.

Nice.

He loves— I'm like, his big thing, he likes killing rats. So it probably doesn't, doesn't hurt that my dad usually pays him like $5 to go on a job with him or something like that. So like, he gets the whole work-money relationship.

Sure.

And he likes money.

Yeah.

Um, and he's like, he's like, why would I go to college when I can just make money? Yeah.

Yeah, that's a really good question. No, but like, if you just sit back and pay attention, you know what your kids like to do.

Yeah. And, and, you know, and like, when are you gonna have this time again?

Who knows? Harvey? If Harvey happens again, which I hope it doesn't.

Here's what makes this situation like really, really unique, right? Is like most of the time when we have time set aside to spend with our families, we're going somewhere. And so we spend half the time that we're gonna spend with them getting to where we're going, right? And so, which means that we spend half the time that we've set aside to spend with our family fighting.

Yep.

Right?

Yeah.

So here's a situation where we get to spend time at home with our family, our loved ones, and like, what are we gonna do with it?

Yeah, I've got a good suggestion. Cook together.

Cook together. Yeah.

I mean, we— so tomorrow night just happens to be Pizza night at my house.

Yes.

Every Friday night is pizza night, and we watch a movie together. And it is— tomorrow night it's my daughter's turn to pick the movie. We have— we take turns.

OK.

And so tomorrow night, uh, so I'm kind of on a, on a little bit of a diet right now.

Yeah.

Low-carbon it. And I found a recipe for, um, for a low-carb pizza crust.

Mmhmm.

OK? So, I'm gonna use this and make that for me tomorrow. And my kids have already been asking, like, can we help make pizza? I'm like, sure, absolutely.

Yeah.

And, and yeah, it's probably gonna take more time. It's gonna be— I guarantee it's gonna be more messy.

Yeah.

And at the end of the day, I don't really care what the food tastes like because we had an experience.

Yeah.

You know, do we need—

we need to chat after the show, by the way. I've got it. I've got a great recipe for you.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right, I'm down.

You'll dig it. I guarantee.

Okay, I'm down. So as long as it doesn't involve toilet paper, because I can't find any of that.

Oh, nuts. It's about the TP.

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, but there's— here's the other thing. How many of you have projects around your house that you've been waiting to get to? Yeah, well, guess what? Go to the hardware store, find what you need, and Buy it and do the project.

Yeah.

And, and involve your family. I mean, if it's you and your spouse, spend some time together.

Uh, it's a great way to spend time together.

It absolutely is. And, you know, it may be something that you have no idea what to do or how to do it. Get on YouTube. I mean, your internet is not about to be shut down.

But let's just, let's just shut down this, this rabbit hole real quick. Please do not spend this time with your family on YouTube.

Yeah, unless you're researching how to do something together.

If you need to know how to do something, fine, find that video, watch it, and then get off. Yeah, turn the internet off because more than likely it's just, you know, again, find, find the authorities who know what's going on, pay attention to what they're saying, don't watch YouTube videos and all this kind of stuff because it's just gonna freak you out.

Yeah.

Um, but yes, you know, spend time with your Loved ones, family, children, parents. Call them on the phone. You know, if they're in another state, you know, like, spend— have a 30-minute conversation.

Let's just say this thing could really go south.

Which it could.

It could. Let's say it does. Don't regret spending time with your family.

Yep.

Just don't do it.

I mean, don't regret not spending the time, I think, is what you're trying to say.

That's what I mean. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like, don't, don't get to a point where you're like, I wish I would have done something else.

Yep.

I, I wish I wouldn't have been on my computer. You know, if you have to work, work. You know, if you've got things you've got to do, make sure you do those things. But, um, we, we want to promote on this show as much as we can family relationships.

Yep.

Be, be a good dad, be a good mom. Be a good husband, be a good wife, be a good, you know, grandparent, um, be a good spouse. Do whatever you have to do, uh, to be a good person to those that you're around, to love hard and intentionally, and, and be safe doing it. I mean, you know, at the end of the day, be safe. If you need to spend more time cleaning your house over the next few days, do it.

Yeah.

Do whatever you got to do.

Get it straightened up, you know.

Yeah. I mean, you've got— you're likely going to have the time.

Because your family and your loved ones are some of the most valuable things in your life, hopefully, it's worth spending the time to protect them.

Yes, it is.

And do the things that's best for them.

Yes, it is.

And that could include not spending time playing sorry and Cloroxing the kitchen.

Yeah.

Cloroxing the bathroom.

Yeah. And honestly, my kids have gotten into that. Like, hey, can I help?

Yeah, sure. Glove up.

Absolutely, absolutely. Teach them while they're young, right?

That's right. So we don't have this happen again.

And you know, I, I don't know, I don't know how this all started. Doesn't really matter. Uh, I don't know how it's all gonna end. Also doesn't really matter. Um, what I know is that there are things that people in authority on these subjects are telling me to do And I could be frustrated that March Madness is not happening, or I could be thankful that there are people watching out for my own well-being.

Yeah.

And that's the, that's the side that I'm gonna, that I'm gonna lean toward.

Yeah.

Is being thankful that there are people out there that are saying, hey, these are the things you can do. And, uh, you know, we, we want to support that as well. So, you know, if you've got any suggestions of things that we haven't even mentioned, please send those our way. We will post them up on our, on our Facebook page.

Absolutely.

Instagram, whatever. We'll try to get the word out as much as we can. Again, this is a special episode. This is not something we had to do. In fact, we're lucky that we're able to put these, these episodes out, and it's people like Paul the Plumber that allows us to do that.

Yep, having amazing sponsors is one of the reasons this show is able to continue on, and so we're super thankful for Paul the Plumber for sponsoring during this show. Uh, if you guys have any plumbing needs, and honestly, this is one of the biggest sanitary issues that you could have going on in your home. And I know he's, him and his team are out in the field trying to make sure that everybody's taken care of as best as possible to get their, you know, like their, their bathrooms and their kitchens and their drains and their fixtures and all, all the things that revolve around plumbing. Uh, which is a crazy amount of stuff, by the way. I

mean, people don't realize how much stuff has to do with plumbing in their home.

Yes.

Uh, Paul and his team are prepared and ready to get your house fixed.

Yeah.

You know, uh, whether that be a, a gas leak or a water leak or a, you know, whatever it is, they're your go-to team for your plumbing needs. So if you need anything, give, uh, reach out to Deborah in the office. You can reach her at 832-521-3252. You can also email her at deborah@paultheplumberllc.com. If you don't know how to spell that, it's in the show notes. Um, you can also go and book them online. You can set up an appointment really, really easy on at paultheplumberllc.com. Uh, you can also reach them on Facebook as well. Really, really easy to get ahold of. So if you have anything going on in your house where you're concerned about the plumbing in your home, give 'em a call.

That's right.

So what else?

That's it, man.

All right.

Listen, this has been a, this has been a, hopefully this has been a helpful episode to people. Hopefully you're, you're, you're ready and prepared to, to move into this, this awkward season. season that we're in with maybe a little bit more optimism, maybe a little bit more preparedness, maybe with a different view on things, hopefully. Uh, or maybe not. Maybe you were just, you know, right on the same page with us and you're just in the background yelling amen, um, which that's fine too. Thank you. Share the episode.

Yeah.

You know, get it, get it into people's hands so that, you know, maybe, maybe some people out there who haven't had a chance to hear about what's going on, you click on this and, and find out what's going on with the coronavirus, how they can get their house a little bit more ready. You know, they can go find the, the resources over at the CDC or the WHO and some of the other things that we're, that we're gonna link up in the show notes.

Yeah, so, you know, thanks for sticking with us.

It's a special episode.

It's not something that, that we had planned. In fact, we had something completely different planned for tonight, but here Here we are, and, uh, thanks for sticking with us. And until next time, we'll see you later. See ya!