Yesterday a co-worker of my wife’s called and said she had two tickets to a Johnny Cash tribute show in Scottsdale, AZ. Being familiar with his complicated but fascinating legacy, his friendship with President Carter and his outreach to the less fortunate, I said sure we could go, if-
If the venue had appropriate Covid safety protocols. My wife sighed as the reminder of the sadness of the new reality we live in crept in. She knew. She knew we would have to log onto the website to check out the venue’s procedures. Then she knew even at that, she would still need to call to double check. The venue made clear that masks were required. In fact, they said they reserved the right to remove from the premises the non-compliant. While there are no vaccination requirements in AZ, this is something to go on. We have to be extremely careful what with our co-morbidities.
I am extremely meticulous. Sometimes it grates on her nerves. I get it. I really do. But I must be this careful, for the both of us.
But reassured by the venue box office we took the tickets.
When we got to the venue, we were happy to see not only was their security requiring patrons to wear masks, they were handing them out for free. Nobody was allowed to go inside the showroom without a mask. And nobody did.
Inside, our smiles and optimism faded into the warm Arizona desert. To our horror, seventy percent, at least, of the patrons removed their masks once in their seats. We heard chatter like, “What are they going to do, throw us all out?” And, “Once the lights go down nobody will know anyway.” There was zero respect, and of the ones that were wearing them a good portion of them had them below the nose. For our part we were doubled up, with a hospital mask being used as a filter inside of a cloth one.
I asked my wife, since she was already getting water for her nightly blood pressure pill, to please find us socially distanced seats. There were none. In fact since the venue’s security admitted they could not hold up to their end of the Covid safety protocol bargain, they offered her a full refund. Offered mind you. We did not demand.
I then looked around again. I saw laughing and spittle reflecting in the showroom lights. As if in slow motion I imagined the trajectory of that spittle, then calculated the percentage of ignorance in the showroom. I told her we had better leave. She nodded, put her head down as if to raise a white flag, then we left our seats.
My wife called her co-worker and I suppose she then called and got a refund but I am not sure.
We then exited the building. Actually, we felt expelled from our own country. We longed to move to California where in Los Angeles County to see so much as the Dodgers play or a musical you have to show proof of a vaccination or a negative test. My wife was raging on the drive home. “We have to leave AZ.” “We have to go to a blue state.” “A Democratic Governor is our only chance to have a life where we don’t die of Covid.”
Word for word quoting. And yet, expelled is the right word. You see despite us doing what are supposed to do, we are the ones, thanks to Republican Governors, treated like outcasts. We are the ones that endure eyerolls, that put up with snickers and sometimes have to fight off the maskholes who would threaten us.
We want our recreational lives back. We did our part to get them back. But until safety is protected, we won’t have them back. And yes, we are chomping at the bit to vote. We are not alone.
These people in that venue still don’t get it. They still don’t get that Covid causes septic lesions, that some people die feeling a burning disfigurement, that some caskets have to be closed for the funeral.
They don’t get how serious it is, how much it harms people with co-morbidities and they don’t care. Where as I consciously make an effort to avoid children, because they can’t be vaccinated yet, they laugh and whoop and act as if the disease will just toughen them up. But I care about those children.
They care about nothing but themselves. Or maybe not even that. Maybe all they care about is the thrill of whatever pursuit is on their mind even at risk to themselves.
But sixty percent or more, of this country, not only agrees with me, they are furious. Sixty percent of this country is tired of flipping through streaming services with a bowl of cereal in their laps, because idiot Governors cater to the ignorant. And the midterms are quickly becoming a referendum on the pandemic.
That is bad news for Republicans, excellent news for team blue. So I will sit here with my cereal, grateful for HBOMAX, and be patient even longer. I will do this for many reasons, most of all a desire to stay alive. But there is something these maskholes are forgetting, in their efforts to own the libs, and to vote progressivism out of existence. It is the most vital requirement of them all, if they want to participate in the democratic process:
One has to not die of Covid to be able to vote.
-ROC
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