WHY, Arizona — In a statement released Wednesday, adult industry quasi-journalist Ben Suroeste announced that he can “no longer remember” why he hasn’t left his house since March and that he’s “finally out of toilet paper, hard liquor, pasta, disposable razors, rice, recreational drugs and hand sanitizer.”

“I remember back in March being told something about the whole country needing to stay inside for a couple weeks, but the rest is kind of a blur,” Suroeste said. “I think sometime around mid-May, my consumption of my stash of recreational drugs began to significantly outpace my intake of rice and pasta and it all sort of spiraled downhill from there.”

In his statement, Suroeste also confessed the reason he’s run out of hand sanitizer is “at some point I began substituting it for gin in my cocktails when I ran out of Tanqueray.”

“Truth be told, the difference in taste between a gin and tonic and a Purell and tonic is not as stark as you might think,” Suroeste added. “The hangovers from each, however, are quite distinct.”

The veteran quasi-journalist said that while he’s out of food, non-water beverages and “just about everything that pertains to maintaining personal hygiene,” he’s not yet reached the point where he’s soliciting donations from the public or otherwise seeking charitable assistance.

“I do have some pride left in me,” a defiant Suroeste said. “That and I’m too old and brain-fogged to figure out how to start a GoFundMe, a Kickstarter, or a Patreon – the latter of which I honestly thought was a tequila brand until my niece sent me a link to it.”

Asked whether he remembers hearing anything about the coronavirus or COVID-19 and whether the pandemic might be the reason he hasn’t left his house in seven months, Suroeste said “COVID-19 rings a bell” but he also can “vaguely recall hearing from a very reliable source that the virus disappeared last April when the weather warmed up, so that can’t be it.”

On a follow-up Zoom call, a visibly confused Suroeste spent much of the time trying to locate his laptop’s built-in microphone, which he seemed to expect to take the form of something dangling from his living room ceiling. When he calmed down enough to have it explained to him that the microphone is an internal one built into the laptop, Suroeste furrowed his brow in clear consternation.

“It’s in the laptop?” he asked. “How the hell am I supposed to record my harmonica overdubs with that?”

Asked to clarify his harmonica comment, Suroeste responded to YNOT in a way which indicates he is now suffering from the delusion he has replaced front man John Popper in the popular-in-the-90’s band Blues Traveler. Asked directly whether he believes he is now a member of the group, Suroeste stood up from his chair, leaned in close to the laptop and screamed: “Suck it in, suck it in, suck it in if you’re Rin Tin Tin or Anne Boleyn!”

“Other than that, I have no comment,” Suroeste said before ending the call.

At press time, it’s not clear whether Suroeste has since left his house, although one source familiar with the writer and his lifestyle habits said he has “heard through the grapevine” that Suroeste has been in touch with his “weed guy” (identified by the source only as “Too-Tall Tom”) and is believed to have begun restocking toilet paper with the unwitting assistance of his next door neighbors.

Representatives of Blues Traveler were not immediately available for comment.

Exasperated man photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels