OTTAWA – Reports indicate that many among the older generation have not been adhering to warnings from health officials to self-isolate. As a result, most have resorted to luring their parents back into the house with old episodes of Jeopardy.
Minister of Health Patty Hajdu said that she and other concerned officials were extremely grateful for Canadian parents’ obsession with the long-running trivia show.
“We tried putting up warning posters in bingo halls and making shareable Facebook memes we knew they’d like, but nothing was helping,” she explained. “So instead, we created a television channel that plays only Jeopardy, 24 hours a day, seven days a week—and it’s working incredibly well. Rates of parents going about their daily life as if there isn’t a deadly pandemic ravaging the globe have plummeted exponentially.”
“Mine kept calling to tell me about how they were still going to book club with all of their other old friends,” ranted Mary Donaldson, a 37 year-old accountant who hasn’t been within six feet of another human in a week. “I finally couldn’t take it anymore. I drove to their home, turned on the TV, and blasted Alex Trebek’s soothing-yet-stern voice out the window until mom and dad came wandering down the road and into the house, shouting answers to the questions the whole way.”
“Then I took some plywood and boarded the doors and windows shut. They’re not leaving until I say it’s safe to come out.”
One parent, 75 year-old Peter Hiller, was in the process of heading to his local pub’s trivia night when his concerned son called him earlier this week.
“My boy Jack, he said that I needed to come home right away because the episode with a three-way tie was just beginning,” Hiller explained, currently on his 574th consecutive episode. “A three-way tie! You don’t get more excitement than that! Plus, it’ll distract me from all these young people whining about some stupid virus that’ll be gone in a week.”
At press time, health officials were prescribing old episodes of The Price Is Right for particularly stubborn parental cases.
