At a very early age, I decided that I wanted to be a paleontologist.

My parents were well aware that I was the sort of soft, round Indoor Child who was probably not well-suited to a life of scraping bones out of sun-baked rocks in the 40-degree-Celsius heat of an unforgiving Mongolian desert. Nevertheless, they supported my dreams by shuttling me to and from the local public library multiple times per week, until I’d read an almost unreasonable number of books about dinosaurs. By the tender age of six, I was a know-it-all monster child who would condescendingly correct you if you used the word “brontosaurus” when you meant “apatosaurus”, and I dissolved into fits of nerd rage if a movie depicted Stegosaurus and Ankylosaurus as having lived at the same time.

If ‘The Good Dinosaur’ had come out when I was a child I probably would have exploded.

My obsession with dinosaurs eventually faded, and I ended up going into a career that was more suitable for the sort of soft, round Indoor Person I became. But my encyclopedic knowledge of useless dinosaur information remains. Even as an adult, I just constantly went about my daily life knowing that Struthiomimus was capable of running at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour and that the Argentinosaurus is the largest animal with undisputed taxonomy in the history of the planet, while having absolutely no socially acceptable outlet for this information.

But then the 2020 global pandemic arrived.

Which has been pretty dull, as far as apocalypses go.

I’ve had a lot of spare time on my hands these last few weeks, staring at my own reflection in the shiny bottom of an empty Doritos bag, and I’ve come to the conclusion that, while dinosaurs may not have survived the K-T extinction event, they almost certainly would have survived the coronavirus pandemic. This is partially because they are genetically so far removed from every living species on Earth that there’s almost no chance they’d actually be able to contract coronavirus, but most importantly, it’s because they had an advanced understanding of social distancing that we could all stand to learn from. Don’t think you should be taking public health advice from an animal that went extinct more than 66 million years go? Consider:

The Tyrannosaurus Rex

The Tyrannosaurus Rex is the Elvis Presley of dinosaurs: it spent most of its existence in North America, it made a living mostly by scavenging from the work of others, and it’s been dead for so long that children aren’t entirely sure what it looked like when it was alive. Even if you were raised in a cult that believed dinosaurs were a hoax created by Satan to make gay people smile, there’s a good chance that you know what a T-Rex is. Standing roughly 3.6 meters (13 feet) tall at the shoulder, and weighing up to 14 metric tonnes, the Tyrannosaurus Rex ruled over the planet for 17 million years before being taken out by a rock the size of Rhode Island.

It’s just a hunk, a hunk of burning love.

So how do you social distance like a T-Rex?

Weighing fourteen metric tonnes is not a requirement, but I’m working on it anyway.

If you’ve turned on the news at any point during the Stay-Indoors-Wash-Your-Hands-and-Lysol-Everything-Stravaganza 2020, you probably learned that the novel coronavirus can survive on hard surfaces for short periods of time. Theoretically, it is possible to catch coronavirus by going to a grocery store, picking up an item that a person with COVID-19 just touched, and then sensually licking your fingers in an attempt to seduce the deli clerk until you are asked to leave the store. Getting through this pandemic requires that we all learn to resist our dirty, dirty primate urge to touch everything in sight and then rub our filthy hands on our faces, which is a difficult and joyless task.

But you know who wouldn’t struggle with that? That’s right. Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Mostly due to anatomical constraints, but still.

The next time you wash your hands, tuck your arms up against your chest so that only your fingers can move. You are no longer a small, meaty human, wandering to the kitchen to get your sixth Diet Coke of the day. No. You are a forty-foot-long theropod with teeth the size of Cavendish bananas and a stomach full of Edmontosaurus chunks, because even though you live tens of millions of years before ice hockey is invented, you’ve already decided that you’re more of a Calgary Flames fan.

But most importantly, as a Tyrannosaurus Rex, you are unable to reach anything that might give you coronavirus. Doorknobs? Impossible to grasp with your tiny, useless arms without smashing your face into the door. Faucet handles? Not happening, unless you plan on having a prehistoric wet t-shirt contest as you flail around in the sink. Your own face? Absolutely out of the question with those little noodle nubbins of yours. You can make it through a whole week on a single hand-washing, because the only thing you are physically able to touch is your own cold, reptilian heart.

Better stock up on bendy straws.

And best of all, when you are finally overwhelmed with frustration at being unable to scratch your nose or open the store-brand chocolate hazlenut spread you were forced to buy because the store was out of Nutella, you can let out a roar of rage and frustration that will remind everyone to stay at least six feet away from you. And you will be safe.

The Pterosaur

Pterosaurs – popularly known as ‘pterodactyls’ by people who have a lot more friends than I do – were a group of flying reptiles who ruled over the skies for nearly 200 million years. Despite their name, they are not actually dinosaurs, and despite their appearance, they are not the ancestors of modern birds – pterosaurs died out in the K-T extinction event, as they were apparently less suited to post-asteroid life than the creatures that later evolved into Costco rotisserie chickens. They ranged in size from an adorable 10-inch wingspan to a nightmarish 36-foot one, and the name ‘pterodactyl’ means ‘winged finger’, partially because their wings did indeed attach to elongated finger bones, and partially because people who scrub dinosaur remains with toothbrushes all day will take their revenge however they can get it.

A lesson I learned the hard way at the University of Alberta Dino Lab.

So how do you socially distance like a pterosaur?

One of the most important parts of social distancing is the requirement that we physically stay distant from each other. It’s right in the name. Coronavirus can be spread through respiratory droplets, and to prevent that, most experts recommend that we stay at least two metres (six feet) from each other at all times, just in case someone out there has powerful thunder-sinuses that let them sneeze clear across a standard-sized parking space.

Staying six feet away from other people is easy when you’re quarantined at home by yourself, watching Kitchen Nightmares re-runs with your dog, but it becomes considerably more difficult when you have to venture out into the world for essential supplies like toilet paper and off-brand gummy peach rings. One moment you’re alone and safe in the grocery store aisle, and the next minute, you’re being elbowed aside by a fellow customer who has decided that dying alone in a field hospital is a risk she’s willing to take if it means not having to wait four extra minutes to get to the frozen pizza rolls.

And that’s where pterodactyls come in.

Frankly, I was disappointed to learn that ‘social distancing’ did not mean ‘forget to answer texts until so much time has passed that responding would make things weird’, because I’ve already mastered that.

The next time you need to venture out for coffee cream and ketchup chips, grab a broom or a mop in each hand. Ideally they should be about the same size, but you can also try out different-sized ones for optimum crazy. The moment you grasp those broom handles in your hand, you are no longer a squishy, warm-blooded human in need of frozen egg rolls. You are a mighty pterosaur, the size of a small Cessna aircraft, getting ready to swoop down on your prey. As you enter the grocery store, unfurl your powerful broom-wings and flap them furiously as you navigate the aisles. And when you have spotted something you wish to consume, let out a mighty screech as you close in on it, to warn the other predators away.

Will you ever be allowed back at that grocery store again? Almost certainly not. But will everyone stay the proper distance away? Definitely.

The Pachycephalosaurus

The name ‘pachycephalosaurus’ means ‘thick-headed lizard’, because these adorable genetic failures had ten-inch-thick skulls that they used to protect their shriveled, pecan-sized brains. They were relatively small as far as dinosaurs go, with most specimens standing roughly as tall as an average man; what they lacked in size, however, they more than made up for with stupidity and violence, spending most of their lives bashing things with their thick heads like living battering rams. They also happen to be my favourite dinosaur, because I have a soft spot for small-brained creatures with poor social skills that enjoy smashing into things.

These are basically the same animal.

So how do you social distance like a pachycephalosaurus?

As we’ve already established, a key part of social distancing is that you can’t touch anything. Ideally, you should be reading this on your laptop screen in large font from a reasonable distance while you scream with impotent rage because your little T-Rex arms can’t reach the Pringles cupboard. But unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that you are occasionally going to need to leave the house to stock up on Chex Mix and roll-on deodorant, and when that day arrives, you need to find a way to get from your bedroom to the store without touching doorknobs in between.

I think you know where I’m going with this.

Straight to the emergency room, most likely.

Instead of contracting coronavirus by touching a deadbolt and then absentmindedly jamming your finger up your nose, stand somewhere at the back of your home so you have a running start between you and the closed door. You are no longer a doorknob-using primate with opposable thumbs and a delicate eggshell of a skull. No. You are a pachycephalosaurus. You are strong. You are aggressive. You have the most underwhelming brain of any vertebrate in Earth’s history, and you are effectively an angry cinder block with legs. And you will burst through doors head-first like a prehistoric Kool-aid man, regardless of the medical consequences.

And the medical consequences will be dire.

You’re almost definitely going to put yourself in the hospital. But at least you won’t have coronavirus.

Also please don’t take medical advice from me because I’m barely qualified to draw cartoons, let alone practice medicine.

So there you have it. We can’t fix this pandemic, or predict when it’s going to end. We can’t say for sure if the early vaccines will work, and we can’t know when it’s going to be safe to hold important events like Creed reunion tours, and ill-advised weddings between people who met two weeks ago at Creed reunion tours. But we can all pretend to be dinosaurs until it’s all over. And that’s something.

For more advice on coping with the COVID-19 pandemic, check out my post on all the fun things you can do with a Ouija board and a bag of mixed nuts to pass the time in quarantine.

To find more of my comedy – or to track my whereabouts so you can contact-trace me – check out my Twitter, my personal Instagram, my Facebook page and my incredibly weird and funny podcast. You can also follow my brand-new official blog Instagram page, for maximum social media saturation.