The COVID Diaries Day 669 – What is this Life?

When the pandemic first emerged, the question was how long will it last? A better question should have been what will we do when it doesn’t just go away as expected. Now we’re on version Omicron and it’s like business as usual. I guess people gave up waiting for it to be over and now it’s a civil war of the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated.

A perfect snapshot of what life is like – I was in the drive-thru line at the CVS waiting to pick up something from the pharmacy. I was going to get out of line and park to go inside when the first car which had taken so long moved. I was one car away from the window, and the car in front of me has 4 people in the car, and I choose to stay.

I got caught up reading a book when I realize that we haven’t moved and it has been like 10 minutes. That is when the car in front of me moves up an inch, the person in the back seat hands the person in the front seat a bag, and the guy drops what appears to be a COVID test into the box right by the window.

Let me get this straight. There were 4 unmasked people in that car, and apparently, one person was getting tested for COVID-19?! While sitting in a car. With three other people. All who are not wearing masks. All who are sitting in the confined space of a person who thinks they might be positive with the virus. Seriously?

But this is what we have to deal with now. No one takes this seriously. They did at first, but then time passed, the misinformation got a hold of the general public. People adopted the philosophy that it can’t be that serious if it isn’t affecting them personally. Which is absolute bullshit.

I don’t think we can get quarantined anymore. There is no point. It didn’t go so hot the first time around in 2020 and it took almost two years to “recover”. A lot of people lost their jobs. A lot of people lost their homes. A lot of people lost their lives. Work from home is now a thing people want versus something that they did when there was no other option.

It really spins me up when I hear people make the ignorant ass comment of “they just need to shut everything down again and make everyone stay home”. People who make that edict do not work what were considered “essential jobs” because those people didn’t get an option to stay at home. The bastards who I hear making those comments are the ones who are more than happy to get unemployment handouts, the shitbags at work who like to milk the isolation guidelines to get out of going to work.

Another snapshot of the overall shittiness I am subjected to daily while living in this backward ass state – I moved about a year ago. I had to take my cat to the vet for a lump on her back. I picked a name out of the proverbial Google hat and made an appointment. The day of the appointment, I walk into the office with my cat (and could I have, I would have had a little mask for my fur baby) and nobody is wearing a mask. Nobody. There is no sign on the door requiring the wearing of masks either.

But get a load of this. The vet wasn’t there since he called out of work because he “didn’t feel well” and he didn’t feel comfortable coming in when he was having symptoms. Oh really? I wonder why. I reschedule the appointment because at this point it is to come back here or drive to the old neighborhood and see the vet there.

The next day, I show up again with my cat, and there is more staff in the office. Again – nobody is wearing a mask. About the only concession to any kind of social distancing is that I am the only person in the waiting room. And maybe that is just a coincidence and not really on purpose.

The vet comes in to check my cat (good news – the lump is benign) but then he asks me the following question which is a testament to the shitty times that we are in and just how people are not taking this seriously:

Vet: How many times have you gotten it?

Me: Gotten what?

Vet: You know, how many times have you gotten sick?

Me: zero.

Seriously? I haven’t gotten sick. As a matter of fact, what I used to suffer through, which were bouts of seasonal allergies, sinusitis, and recurring colds literally dropped to zero since I started wearing masks. Though I wish the pandemic hadn’t happened, to begin with, it normalized wearing masks during flu season helping the unwashed masses keep their nasty ass body fluids to themselves.

The vet continues to overshare and tells me that he was fairly sure he got it before they identified what it is. And that once they identified it, he got it again. So twice he’s had it. Then he bragged about the fact that he still doesn’t have a sense of smell. Like it’s a badge of honor or something. I kind of stopped listening to him at that point, counting the minutes when I could pay the bill and vacate out of there.

These are the crazy-ass people that we have to deal with. He’s an educated person, and yet, he has established an office culture of misinformation. Multiply that times every other small business where the boss puts no credence on the realness of the virus, and you have people willingly exposing themselves to fit in, to not stick out, and to keep a paying job.

It really shouldn’t be like that.