What in the sam hill is this Arby’s drive through window they have set up for the 2020 Vice Presidential debate? I’ve seen shot fountains at college frat parties with better protection on them. After a week of pushback on any health safety measures at all from the Pence camp, the Commission on Presidential Debates finally got them to agree to this: two iPhone screen protectors.

Excuse my coarse language but what in tarnation is this supposed to do? Y’all got Sen. Kamala Harris behind a sneeze guard at a salad bar talking about “mission: accomplished.” I don’t think so, darlings. I really do not. These two people, plus a debate moderator, are going to be boisterously orating for 90 minutes and you know at least one of them is going to be saying every single thing with her whole chest. Meanwhile Pence was sitting next to Gwyneth Paltrow at the casino in Contagion 10 days ago? What in blue blazes?! (Pardon my french.) What’s that little communion wafer of glass going to do? They need to lock him in a glass cube like General Zod. I’m not public health expert but this just seems like the five-second rule in Plexiglass form and it doesn’t sit right with my spirit.

This looks like a physical manifestation of wearing your mask over your mouth but not your nose. This Plexiglass has about the same effect as when you walk in on someone’s Zoom meeting, freeze, whisper-yell “Sorry”, and then tiptoe across the room to get the thing you came for, realize it wasn’t there, root around for it, and then tiptoe out, yelling “Sorry!” again.

This barrier is like when you used to tell someone a secret in Pig Latin in middle school so nobody else would understand it. The screens were manufactured in America by God Made Dirt and Dirt Don’t Hurt, Incorporated. A Post-In note on your laptop camera to keep the FBI out of your business has more of a protective effect.

I don’t know what this is actually. I think this is an award you win for regional manager of the year.

The debate commission was like “Well, Broadway may be dark, but hygiene theater is alive and well! We’re not throwing away our flu shot!” This sneeze guard is basically the moment Alexander Hamilton aims his pistol in the sky and is like “Vice President and all-around standup guy Aaron Burr will totally honor the system that we’ve put into place.”

The Hot Priest’s confessional on Fleabag season two presented more of an obstacle than these lil slices o’ glass. The titular Sliding Doors in the Gwyneth Paltrow film Sliding Doors presented more of an obstacle. The lil shards of glass in the Annie Lennox song Walking on Broken Glass were more of an obstacle.

Why do we even need to have this debate in person at all? Is there an American whose vote cannot be decided unless they see Sen. Kamala Harris and Mike Pence in close physical proximity? I don’t need to see two candidates at dueling distance unless they are actually having a duel. If ever there was a meeting that should have been an email it’s this. Pence would send a list of half-truths and dog whistles and Harris would reply with literally anything that the president has said or done in the last 24 hours and a GIF of herself. Case closed.

They do not need to be indoor doing this. We have a great (?) nation full of beautiful open spaces that the Trump administration is trying to destroy. Have the debate in Central Park like a Diana Ross concert. Have the debate across the Grand Canyon. What’s Space Force doing? Don’t they have the technology to send Pence to the Moon and let him yell into the void from there?

If there’s one thing we all know from months of experience in online communication it’s that we all have the technology to do this safely and distantly. A kindergartener can set the VP up on Zoom in five minutes flat. This is not hard. Why do they need to be inside, sitting at desks like they’re going as Colin Jost and Michael Che for Halloween? We created a world where Vanessa Hudgens acted opposite herself in three different Princess Switch movies; you’re telling me you can’t beam in two candidates for vice president to make it look like they’re together? We have technology that allowed Justin Timberlake to perform a duet with a hologram of Prince! I’m not saying I liked it; I’m just saying it’s possible.

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Senator Harris needs to roll into that debate hall dressed like Amy Adams in Arrival. The only debate prep she needs to do is watching Naomi Campbell’s videos about her very complicated process for disinfecting airline seats. And Pence should do the same! The virus does not have a political leaning, despite all recent appearances to the contrary. He is surrounded by people who are not taking it seriously and he continues to put himself in danger for no reason. And for what? To get dismantled at a molecular level by the laser-sharp focus of Kamala Harris? That little minimalist glass coffee table they’ve set up between them isn’t going to protect him from Kamala Harris questioning him to smithereens. No indeedy-do. If Sen. Harris wanted to debate me in person I would immediately respond with a Zoom link. I’d turn out all the lights in my house for good measure and just pray that she left some shred of my dignity to cling to. I mean, really. What in thunderation is happening here?

R Eric Thomas is a Senior Staff Writer at ELLE.com, home of his daily humor column “Eric Reads the News,” which skewers politics, pop culture, celebrity shade, and schadenfreude.

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