Every Who down in Whoville was sick of the rules,
All the masks, sanitizers, and closure of schools.
Caroling was banned along with the Annual Snow Slog.
As was glippity glupping up Festive Who Nog.
Gatherings of more than ten Whos were forbidden.
Christmas this year would be un-cheery and hidden.
All the Who scientists, with their nerdy persistence,
Pled for patience and caution and more social distance.
“Enough!” cried the Whos, “We’re plain sick of this folly.
We want to wear bells and get drunk and be jolly.”
“It’s Christmas, for Sneed-sake, let science be damned.
We’re decking the halls and Who-glazing the ham.”
Then one of the smart Whos had a wicked idea.
An impetuous, cockeyed, idiotic, unsanitary, barbarous, unseasonably unkind, illegally gathered, shit-brained, perfect-ending-to-2020, wicked idea.
They could do what Whos did in the old days of yore,
A sacrifice to the Jingle Gods to remake Whoville pure.
“The Christmas Gods will see that we’re merry and highbrow.
Let’s roast us a Grinch. Let’s roast us one now.”
“Huh?” cried the scientists. “Where is the Who-manity?
Just a few more months of masks and handwashing and sanity.”
“Then it will be spring, this pandemic behind us.
And we’ll start solving the next thing doomed to annihilate us.”
Too late as the unmasked mob tore off their porches.
Waving glik-glacky flaskies and torktunky torches.
Snug in his lockdown cave, the Grinch read his Fauci.
He heard them arrive, sounding tipsy and grouchy.
Tiptoeing to the window, he peered out at the blackness.
Bearing pitchforks and weapons, worst of all: they were maskless.
He’d steered clear of Whoville, their phlegm and gesundheits.
Their germs GERMS! GERMS! GERMS!, their sneezy-snoot-snites.
The Grinch followed the guidelines, he’d stuck to the plan.
He’d quarantined for months avoiding child, woman, and man.
But here was the proof, right there on patrol:
You were only as safe as the next sniffling asshole.
They relayed their strategy: roast him and magically end lockdown.
A Christmas tree bonfire in the center of town.
Unreachable on his cliff, the Grinch felt hygienic and wiser.
He was not coming down, not without news from Pfizer.
He knew the Whos stressed out during each holiday.
But this schloopity-schloop-shlup was a batshit display.
“Hold on, friends,” he called. “I know we’ve had some disunity.
But burning me alive won’t provide herd immunity.”
He relayed some statistics, some CDC spreadsheets,
Whoville data, tracking maps, the most factual tweets.
Getting together to carol, or burn him at the stake,
Would only increase the global infection rate.
What they needed was not huggy handholding plume,
But a holiday greeting, just this one year, over Zoom.
It occurred to each Who, as they heard him expound.
They could smell nothing, not even each other, down there on the ground.
Forget about mistletoe, gingerbread, or Advent.
The Grinch-lynch had turned into a superspreader event.
From his perch, the Grinch waved as they scattered goodbye.
Then he saw no Who in Whoville until mid-July.