Columnists
Masks and flip flops
August is half-past. My baby sister is, today (Sunday), on the shady side of sixty. She told me she celebrated her birthday with a breakfast of coffee, one piece of toast and leftover salad. I’m a “cake for breakfast” kind of celebrator of birthdays. That there’s the difference between her and I. I’ve never been accused of being sensible. I don’t wear sensible shoes, I prefer flip-flops or hiking boots. I day-drink, when I want to day-drink. I think potato chips should be on Canada’s food pyramid as a vegetable, and I consider ice cream an important part of a balanced diet. I don’t dress like a seventysomething woman, even though I’ve been offered ageist-type directions with my wardrobe choices by other seventy- something women. I didn’t get a sensible haircut when I hit forty and I happen to like “today’s music”. Additionally, I’ve been know to have ice cream as a meal replacement, especially if it’s a ginormous single-scoop from Cones and Shakes. Baby sister and I are a lot alike, but we’re a whole lot different, too. And that’s just fine. I envy her focus on clean eating, but prefer my focus on doing whatever the hell I want to do. In some ways, both of us are rebellious in a wild-haired, rock music kinda way.
So, half-past August, eh? Most of our July and August birthdays have been feted, appropriately. Birthdays aside, the thing is, I really thought we’d be right back-to-normal by now, as regards COVID-19. I sure didn’t think we’d be up to our eyebrows in a fourth wave. Crap, at the beginning of all of this, who even thought of waves except the waves in the lake when the end of the pandemic was supposed to wash over us last spring. We were, back in the good old days, talking about flattening the curve. Now we’ve got waves. What the H E double vaccinations is wrong with all of us? Why can’t we just get over ourselves and do the right thing? All of us need to do the right thing. The end of the pandemic can’t happen unless everyone buys into eradication in some way, shape or form. What’s the point in vaccinating seventy percent of the eligible folks when thirty per cent run around with their “shields down” and their dander up. We are so hooped if we can’t get this right. It’s been over a year, closing in on two years, and we are still battling the deniers and the reluctant-folks. I know, I know. There are people who can’t be vaccinated. I get that, so don’t inundate me with emails about who you are. But we do have a problem. Even if we think we’re safe, here in the County, tourism makes that a pile of horsepucky. Many of the visitors are unmasked and many are unvaccinated. We’re the same, many unmasked and many of us are unvaccinated. We really need a COVID-19 Denier’s Battlefield, away from the public, to let all of “those folks” duke it out. The only weapons they can bring to the field would be water bottles and herbal remedies. I can see it now, the deniers and “unvaxxers” hacking, spitting and snotting to the bitter end, hurling insults and pseudoscience quotes at each other pausing only to catch their breath or take a hit off an oxygen tank.
Seriously, I’m tired of being isolated. I have mentioned this once, or twice, before. I want to see my family without feeling guilty or frightened. I want to have lunch with my friends so we can day-drink together. I want to be able to hear what people are saying without a mask/muffler. I really thought I was doing well. I’m not exactly a social butterfly, so I was okay for a little while. Distancing and isolation seemed to suit me, back in the olden days of 2020. These days, every time I head out to a public-ish place I get tense and fearful. The Delta variant has me on the ropes. What if the person six feet ahead of me coughed on the can of beans I just picked up? What if I carry those cooties home to our youngest grandchild—who is too young to be vaccinated. When will it be okay to stop washing the groceries? What if I bring the virus to my friend who is so allergic she can’t be vaccinated? We only chat over her back fence, sort of/kind of. We don’t get very close, but I still worry about her and, dang, I’d like to be closer than “over the back fence”. She’s been isolated, not just distancing, but isolated since last March. Surely this hesitation to do the right thing isn’t fair and equitable for her. Surely we all have someone in our lives who is in the same position—someone we care about and needs our protection to be safe, but really and truly can’t be vaccinated. We do. Right? We need to make sure the world is good for them.
So, half-past August, 2021, folks. One of my learned pals thinks we’ll be wearing masks and distancing for at least two years more. I’m hoping the market for masks will be like the market was for leg-warmers— fleeting. I never owned a pair of leg-warmers, but I do have about a dozen, stylin’ masks. I don’t really want masks in my wardrobe. They clash with my flip flop approach to life.
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