Interlude

My apologies in advance. I usually try to make this place a refuge from all that swirls on around us. Sometimes it’s easier than others...

Sam and I made one of our increasingly rare lightning-strike visits to the grocery store yesterday. On the way into the parking lot, I stopped to let a guy pass who was heading from his car to the store’s entry. Actually, he headed to the store's exit.

Before this COVID situation, the doors on either side of the entry vestibule could be used for entering or exiting. Once the virus became more serious, or rather, was taken more seriously, stores began implementing restrictions to control in-store traffic flow (among other things). In the case of this store, one of the things they did was dedicate the set of doors on one side of the vestibule to people entering the store and the doors on the opposite side to people exiting the store. This has been their setup for at least the last four of my visits. That would mean this setup has been in place for well over two months.

Anyway, as I headed to a parking space, I noticed this guy was now standing in front of the non-opening, now exit-only doors, hands on his hips, reading one of the many policy signs plastered all over the face of these double doors.

After I parked, Sam and I headed over to the now entry-only doors. There was one lady ahead of us, stopped outside the doors with her carriage, so Sam and I stopped (six feet) behind her. I thought it was odd that there would be any sort of line to get in since there were so few cars in the lot. Apparently, the few people getting in line behind us thought so, too. Even with everyone wearing a mask, you could tell the looks of bewilderment. Finally, the first lady in line turned around and said, “There's some idiot up there trying to get in without a mask.” Everyone groaned.

After a minute or so, the mask-less guy, the guy trying to go in the exit (as it turns out) leaves to a gauntlet of groans, peppered with a few, “Give me a break”-type comments - and as he walks by, I hear him say to his presumed wife (who was wearing a mask, by the way), “I just think some of these places are taking advantage of the situation.”

What??? What does this even mean? How does you not following their rules (of a private establishment, by the way) mean they’re “taking advantage” of a situation? How does booting out a (potential) paying customer (unless he felt that paying for merchandise was also somehow unfair and an infringement on his civil rights), mean they’re the ones taking advantage of... anything???

Out of all of the many, many, many things that bother me about this entire situation, the fact that people have some problem with doing something so simple as wearing a mask, is one of the most bewildering and disgusting episodes in our increasingly selfish and self-absorbed so-called society. Why is this even political? (Don't bother to answer that.)

As I understand it, the point of wearing a mask is not to protect you. It’s to protect the people around you.

No one’s asking you to go off to war. No one’s rationing your gas. No one’s even asking you to black out your windows at night. All you’re being asked to do is wear a damn mask - a mask for the protection of those around you. You remember, these are your fellow citizens, your fellow “countrymen”. This is the big sacrifice and you can’t even bother to do that?

To top it off, many of these self-centered, self-obsessed fill-in-the-blanks (it's multiple choice), have the unmitigated gall to refer to themselves as patriots, as if not thinking of anyone other than themselves is some kind of bold action.

It drives me nuts.