The cilantro, planted last spring, is up and thriving this year.

There is a squiggly digital line that cuts across our valley marking the boundaries between congressional districts. My district is a gerrymander’s dream that has more bends and elbows than a high school basketball game. Which means that not only am I hard pressed to identify the congressman for Tennessee District 3 (and one can be damn sure he doesn’t know me), but that to this day I still get confused about which district actually owns me. In each election cycle, I’m bombarded by circulars from the candidates of two different districts, the apparent strategy being to blanket every mailbox in a desperate bid to snag a live one.

Likewise, a command for me to appear for jury duty in an adjoining county periodically appears in the mailbox. The law, in all its majesty, then makes it incumbent upon me to show up at a “foreign” courthouse to verify that I do not live in the jurisdiction to which I was summoned, having pulled together my property tax records once again to prove it, and stand humbly before the ignorant. It is not in the job description of either the judge or the courthouse clerks to know who resides in their county. Their job is simply to send out blanket orders, based on who-knows-what criteria, then let God and the citizens sort it out.

Is it any wonder, in a country that mailed who-knows-how-many Covid-related stimulus checks to Nigeria, that some of its citizens lack confidence in the integrity of their votes? Sadly, the basic responsibilities of a smooth-running system, like knowing the voter list and the jury pool, require a level of competence that appears no longer in our grasp.

Because, to paraphrase James McMurtry, we just can’t do anything anymore.

Even ancient Sumer knew to the last iota of grain what was in the granaries and how many people lived in each province. But for us, having an actual count of the number of vaccines administered, warehoused in search of an arm, or lost and forgotten is beyond the ken of the nation who put men on the moon with slide rules and duct tape and beat Hitler and Hirohito in just under four years.

Recently, I called the Tennessee Department of Health helpline to try to find out where Covid vaccinations were being offered in my area. A pleasant enough woman with a toddler babbling in the background answered:

“I’m having trouble with the state’s online vaccination site,” I said. “Can you help me figure out my nearest location for getting vaccinated?”

“Sure. What is your zip code, sir?” she said.

“It’s 37846.”

“Got it. Please hold for a minute.” Pause. “There is one very close to you. It’s in Greeneville.”

“Greeneville is two and half hours away from me.”

“Well, it shows on my list that it’s only 10 minutes from you.”

“It’s not. Like I said, it’s two and half hours away.”

“Hmmm. What is your zip code again?”

“37846.”

“Ah, okay. Here’s one that’s very close by. It’s in Ashland City.”

I did a quick search for Ashland City on my computer. “That is not close at all. It’s three hours from me.”

“Well, my list shows it’s very close to you. Tell me your zip code once more.”

And so it went, until 25 minutes later I said I’d just call back another time. I didn’t, of course. Instead, I stopped by my local drugstore and asked if they were giving vaccinations. They promised they’d contact me when I became eligible.

Which leaves us, a year later, in this, the most current crisis of our enfeebled land, masked and isolated, but still believing the illusion of our invincibility simply because we can stream Netflix. Unaware that as a society, we can no longer execute the routine acts of governance or citizenry. We might not be able to keep you alive, let alone identify what county you live or vote in, yet we do know this: That blue extra-large oxford shirt will look nice on you. And we know there is free shipping.

We just can’t do anything anymore.

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Reading this weekend: The Raw and the Cooked (J. Harrison)