The Paper Anniversary

As we approach the one year anniversary of when "it all went down", I find it rather appropriate that a one year anniversary gift is paper?

Ah yes, who remembers the scramble for the hallowed scrolls, depleted from every grocery store shelf, and stolen from any business brave enough to allow the infected to enter their doors?  Of course, we all have the power of retrospection - and again, much like paper being the commemorative first year gift that keeps on giving - we can look into last year with great, and perfect, hindsight (yes, you have to fill in the rest of this joke yourself).

Let's take a moment of introspection and think about what we learned last year.  Go ahead, I will wait.  It's okay, take all the time you need.  I will be right here waiting for you.

Because we all need a little time to ourselves: everybody needs a little time away, I hear Peter Cetera say... from each other.  And we got that last year, and at the same time, we did not get that.  The global divorce rate shot up like a Saturn Rocket bearing a rover bound for Mars, and much like the rover, there was no coming back.  There is some ridiculous statistic that divorce rates are close to every six marriages out of ten do not make it - to which, any mathematical logician could easily surmise that the leading cause of divorce is marriage.  I have not bothered to look at the statistics for the number of new widows last year and if the surviving partner watches True Crime shows on Netflix... just throwing that out there.  

But, all my silly rhetoric aside, what did we really learn?

First of all, ignoring a pandemic is a not a good idea.  I feel like we were the kids that got knocked down in Physical Education (gym class, team sports, entertain the coach with jokes to distract him from his coke habit, etc..) and has broken a bone to only be told, "it's okay kid, quit yer bitchin'  and walk it off!"  Sadly, we were the kid with the broken arm, to which the arm became septic, gangrene set in, and by the time someone finally said, "hey. your arm don't look quite right," it was too late.   

As I see it online today, we have roughly twenty-five percent (okay, 24.897%) of the positive cases and twenty percent of the deaths globally (respectively reported on the Johns Hopkins site).  And since we are playing with numbers, there is about 7.8 billion people on the planet, and the US makes up about 330 million of that, which makes us 4.2%. of the world's population.  Say what you will, but I like numbers that don't shoot lasers from space, and those numbers add up to sheer idiocy on our part.

The lesson here: listen to the scientists.  I had to listen to someone not wearing a mask in a public gathering pontificate that a bunch of surgeons said that masks do not matter.  "Adorable," I replied.  "You mean that these surgeons no longer perform surgeries with masks?"  To which I get an earful of conspiratorial nonsense they gleaned from the uneducated part of the internet and/or cable news (likely more of the latter, since this person did not strike me as a big reader).  Honestly, when it comes to diseases and epidemics, I will always err to the side of the person that studied and graduated with a degree in epidemiology and/or virology. I do not know about you, but before the surgeon needs to harbor any of my vital organs to support his or her coke habit, I will kindly ask that he or she wear a mask.

Secondly, wearing a mask is now the new norm.  There is no harm in it.  It does not make you less of a person.  It does not make you look weak.  It is when you refuse to wear the mask when you come across as a complete, and uncaring asshole.  No one is impinging upon your rights by asking you to wear a mask.  In fact, the next time you want to tell a woman what to do with her body, think about that kind old man bagging groceries at the supermarket who kindly asked you to put on a mask that you subsequently, and so graciously, told to eff off.  You don't want people in your business, but we don't want your germs, thank you very little.  Again, going back to the math, if you are the kind of person not wanting to wear a mask, the odds are rather even that you are, or will become, a super spreader.  

People have mocked the Asian countries for wearing masks as frequently as they do, and it turns out that they were well ahead of the curve on this.  But, I get it, to admit that you may have been wrong at misjudging or mocking another culture is hard to back out of... being apologetic and taking ownership for our mishaps is not very American in the land of lawsuits and laying blame at others' feet.  

Which leads to the last lesson learned: we need to be better to one another.  We even had another installment of Bill and Ted come out last year (which I have not watched yet - mea culpa, mea culpa), who taught us "To Be Excellent to Each Other."  I did witness a lot of good happen around the country where people ran food banks and did their best to help their neighbors; but for every good story, there seemed to be some atrocity to counterbalance it.  We had the greedy people that found a way to make fat bucks off of the pandemic; the hoarding of needed supplies for hospitals based on the color of a state; and, once again, the intransigence to not wear a mask and doubling down by attending large gatherings without them.

I know that the largest division between people is based on what they believe - and not religiously - but by what they believe from the Internet and the every other social outlet out there.  I am not going to get into who is right, who is wrong, and all the whacky controversies out there - that is the definition of a waste of time.  What I am going to do is ask one little favor.  I want everyone to have two words in their head before they repeat something they have read or heard.  Two very simple words:

"Citation, Please"

Have that tiny voice in the back of your head ask yourself, "Hey, is this really legit?  Do I possibly sound like a lunatic for saying these things? Maybe I should go out to the Internet and validate this with a couple of reputable sites before I regurgitate what I have just heard?"

Okay, that is more than two words, but you get the idea.

Stop. Listen to what you are about to say.  Check your sources,  Validate your sources. And then maybe decide it is best to not say anything at all.

Finally, be sure you have plenty of scrolls for the next pandemic: or buy yourself a bidet for the anniversary!  All the cool kids are doing it... it must be true, I read about it on The Tik Tok.