I was in Fresh Market Sunday morning. I know it’s a little pricier than some places, but it’s smaller and a really buttoned-up store: masks required, six-foot floor markers, one person into the meat counter area at a time, plastic screens at checkout, sanitizer, etc. I feel comfortable shopping there.
I picked out some produce, some fruit, and headed over to the dairy section. On the way, I saw two women at the dessert counter, talking with the baker, masks down around their necks. It ticked me off, but they weren’t my problem and I was in a bit of a hurry. Then they became my problem.
President Donald Trump salutes
I was picking out some yogurt when the women walked right up next to me, yakking and laughing, still with their masks around their necks. I turned and said, more politely than I should have, “Please put your masks over your face and stay six feet away.”
Silence. Then one woman looked at me as though I were a crazy man, eyes large, shocked expression on her face, as though the idea of wearing a mask was something an alien might suggest. She turned to her friend, laughed, looked back at me, and said, “Oh, baby, you’re gonna be all right. We’re all good.”
I said, “No, we’re NOT good unless you pull your mask up and back off.”
The woman cocked her head, and said, patronizingly, as though I were six, “It’s okay, sweetie. Don’t you worry. You have a blessed day, now.”
Ah yes, “Have a blessed day” — the verbal closer of choice for passive-aggressive religious types, one step removed from “Bless your heart.” Grrrr.
Anyway, after anointing me with the love of Jesus, the women backed off a few feet (not pulling up their masks) and went back to yakking. I finished shopping and reported them to the checker, who called the manager. I hope they got their blessed butts kicked out, but who knows?
Look, I don’t want to get COVID, but if I do, it’s not going to be because I acted stupidly. And it’s not going to be because I allowed stupid people to invade my personal space. I’m not as scared of COVID as I am of fools, religious whack-jobs, science deniers, conspiracy believers, most Republicans in Congress, and people who think President Trump is setting a good example. Ignorance is the true killer, and it’s what the president’s enablers in his party and in the right-wing media continue to spread. The fact that Trump himself and half the White House staff have caught the disease hasn’t changed a thing.
In case you missed it, here’s what Trump tweeted on Monday: “I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M. Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!” Trump also said he might be “immune” to the disease. What?
Trump could have used his personal experience to spread empathy and awareness, to point out that even someone as protected and rigorously tested as the president of the United States is vulnerable to COVID. He could have acknowledged that millions of his fellow citizens who’ve had the disease didn’t get helicoptered to a hospital as soon as they showed symptoms; they didn’t get dozens of doctors and specialists and tests and experimental treatments and 24-hour care. He could have said something as simple and compassionate as, “This is a scary and dangerous disease. Please wear masks and practice social distancing.”
But that would have required showing humanity, something Trump sees as weakness. Instead the president opted for Il Duce reality show theatrics: exiting a helicopter on the White House lawn at the precise hour of the evening news, climbing a flight of stairs to a perfectly back-lit balcony, pulling off his mask, and standing manfully for a full minute, before holding a long salute for the cameras and then turning to walk into the White House, still unmasked. It was so manly, the Fox News pundits got the vapors.
Meanwhile, an average of 40,000 Americans a day are getting COVID; 1,000 or so are dying. There are hotspots all over the country. Some states are buttoned-up like Fresh Market. Others, like Florida, are wide open, with no COVID restrictions whatsoever. Yeehaw. And let’s not forget that millions of people have lost their jobs because of this needlessly prolonged epidemic.
I hope you’ll forgive me, but I’m rooting for one more to lose his.