Monday, April 20, 2020

I'm back: a "safe-at-home" Rant

The picture is from the Milwaukee Independent of a protester in Brookfield, Wisconsin who was moved to risk the health of herself and others because that tiresome stay-at-home order is keeping her from getting a nice feathered trim and some kicky highlights. Never mind that deaths from Covid-19 today are up over 36000 (230 in Wisconsin.) What’s a few random dead people when your highlights are turning brassy? After all, it’s not like it's someone we KNOW..


One of my friends challenged a group of us to try to save the post office by actually using it and sending letters. Crazy, huh? So I am sitting here at the computer pounding out this while listening to the “New Yorker Radio Hour,” because that’s just the way I roll. So six of you will get this in the mail. Aren’t you lucky?

Now, I’m sure that you are just as bored as I am with the “shelter in place” thing. Here in SoCal getting into a market can be something like lining up for government cheese in the 60’S era Soviet Union. Our local market has everyone lining up (keeping six feet part, natch) and will not let you dare enter with the re-useable bag we have been told to bring for years now. No, the plastic bags are free-flowing and free. People here have stopped hoarding TP, or maybe it’s just that it is almost impossible to get and the few places that do have it will not allow you to take more than two rolls at a time. The aisles at Trader Joe’s have been made one-way and the staff restricts the number of shoppers who can be in the store at once. Ralphs and Pavillions so far don’t, so while you go through everything but a Lysol© car-wash on the way in, it’s a free-for-all inside. Until recently, farmers markets were still open with no oversight at all: you could get your Kale with a side of Covid in Brentwood until a Schwartzenegger kid posted a photo to instagram of unmasked yuppies cheek-by-jowl over the designer tomatoes. That changed fast.

Lots of meetings that were previously held in person from AA to Yoga classes are now being held on Zoom. This has led to a phenomenon called “Zoom Bombing.” Where d-bags with nothing better to do infiltrate a meeting and start posting chat image with racist slurs and picture of their genitals (It must be tragic to go through life with an outtie for a belly button and an innie for a penis.) The life-threatening mega close-up of my face these meetings insist upon showing is hard to love, but I do not have to wear pants, even if I make a point to do so.

Beaches in Southern California, parks and other such places are closed. Of course this does not stop people from climbing over the barriers to get there. That big wave or selfie of you looking out over the Valley is far more important than you taking care of yourself or others. Of course since Cheetoh started tweeting “LIBERATE (insert state here)” we have hoards of double-digit IQ types saddling up the SUV, affixing the flag if not a mask and exercising their right to be an idiot, even unto blocking an ambulance from a hospital in Lansing, Michigan. It really speaks to the fact that the powers that be have no view of the future than further than their nose. Newsflash Cheetoh: when these crazies get Covid, they might not be alive to vote for you, or at least too sick to do anything but mail in a ballot. But then, you’re gutting the postal service, so that won’t work either.

The only upside is that at least here in SoCal the air quality is magnificent. It’s sad that this is at the cost of many jobs that may or may not come back when this is all over. I was listening to some pundits who were saying on NPR that this situation cannot help but pound home to the average Joe or Jane that climate change is real and we do personally have an effect on our environment. Sadly, I don’t buy it. I have a feeling that after this is over and people have some disposable income again there will be an orgy of spending on the useless crap that we always thought that we “needed.” I already had an acquaintance tell me all about the new iPhone that he said I should get. “It’s only $399 and has everything you want on it!” Well, I think I will stick to my paid for iPhone 4, thanks.


I hope you are getting out, masking up and maintaining social distance. That you’re staying safe and saying sane. Write back if you feel like it; help keep USPS alive. Start collecting stamps!

Image: Milwaukee Independant 

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