We Are Now Fully Open!
People are still refusing to wear masks.
There are people allowing their children to go without masks. Yesterday I took a walk in the park in the evening, and the place was mobbed. There was a full-team soccer practice on the soccer field. Two soccer players were wearing masks – around their necks.
There were two baseball fields with teams practicing. On one field, everyone was socially distanced because, well, that’s how you play baseball. But no one was wearing a mask.
On the other field, there was a line of maybe ten little leaguers – all under the age of 8 – sitting knee to knee, on the ground, listening to the coach. The coach, of course, was not wearing a mask.
A couple of adults stood nearby, presumably “helping” with little league practice: no masks. Is that helpful?
In Maryland, we are fortunate to have our COVID numbers dropping. Our governor was swift to take action and careful to enforce rules. I wish I could say the general population was equally swift and careful, but that same park was teeming with people until the minute Maryland finally closed its parks.
Yesterday I drove past a sign for a restaurant/bar way out in the country. The sign announced: WE ARE NOW FULLY OPEN!
It was the exact same place I’d seen with people laughing and drinking on the wraparound porch after the pandemic suggested that places be shut down. I wanted to spray paint over their new sign: YOU ARE NOW FULLY STUPID!
From what I saw yesterday, our numbers are going to go back up.
Meanwhile in Tennessee, where Dylan goes to college, the parents of his classmates are saying, “I’m not worried at all” about their children, or other students, being careless in the fall.
Not worried AT ALL?!?
Teenagers are holding parties in Alabama to see who gets the virus first! Do you even know this?!
I’m not debilitated by worry (anymore) but who is actually NOT worried? Who can say they don’t care about this disease that’s killed hundreds of thousands of people?
I think the only people who can honestly say they’re “not worried” are people who only care about themselves.
And that’s what’s so frustrating about the political divisiveness, the stupidity of the current administration, and the carelessness of whatever parents sent their children to little league practice – and whatever coach sat them down in such a tiny area. It’s not so much that a mask will save lives. It’s that if you’re not worried about a deadly disease, there’s something wrong with you.
I’m not happy about staying indoors, stuck. I want to go do things again. I’m so sick of washing my hands. But I’m not going to stop just because I’ve suddenly decided that it’s more important to go out and play than it is to keep the world safe.
It’s hard to write these days. I’m so, so angry. I’ve spent a lot of time looking through things that I wrote in the past, and that was depressing. Between the depression and the anger, I want to crawl into a hole. I don’t want to write.
BUT REALLY?!? You sent your kids to little league practice?!? Who does that?!?
You want to laugh and drink with your friends? You’re sending your kids back to college in a place where the numbers are rising like lightning? And you aren’t worried – not even a little?
Maybe you should hold a nice COVID party of your own, mask-free. Just STAY AWAY FROM MY FAMILY.
Just. So. Angry.