Neighbors
I think I’m pretty conformist and orthodox on the whole Covid precautions issue, including the parts that are about not infecting other people as opposed to avoiding being infected myself. But I don’t know…
This aft I was walking down a side street and a woman pulling a grocery cart hove into view at the corner, and stopped to put a mask on. I kind of wondered “Mask?” because I was the only person in sight, but oh well – but then as the distance between us shrank she snarled at me: “I’d cross the street but my house is right there” – pointing ahead. For a second I thought she was joking but then I realized – cross the street?? Because one person is on the same side as she is, with plenty of room for us to avoid each other? So I turned to watch her as she passed me, and she snarled again “Whatever” and then some steps later “Idiot.”
??? There is no general outdoor mask mandate now. Crowded outdoor events, yes, but just being outside, no. As I say, there was NO ONE else in sight – it wasn’t crowded. Also I’m vaxxed and she almost certainly is too.
I kind of felt like running after her and smacking her on the back of the head, but I didn’t.
And reasonable, and informed by the science, and cognizant of what the experts say.
There are always going to be people who take precautions too far, as if they’re being given a sort of Purity Test. And, come to think of it, the people who throw precaution to the wind are also living out a Purity Test. Moderation in all things …
Delta has people scared, and they probably should be. Ever seen the ‘fleeting contact’ video tracing evidence from Sydney?
I’d forgotten when I wrote this that the governor (Jay Inslee) has re-imposed a mask mandate, but for inside, i.e. shops and buses and the like. I’ve been wearing masks in those places anyway, and on buses I tell people to put them on if they get near me. I hate doing it because always afraid of shouting or a fight, but I do it, because buses aren’t like outside, plus the driver can’t leave. Maybe the woman on the street misread or misheard what Inslee said…but she must have been on the main drag because she had shopping in the cart, so how did she not notice that people weren’t masked outside? I crossed it a couple of minutes later and looked and sure enough – bare faces everywhere.
That sounds like the way I was treated a few months ago when I avoided a woman without a mask in the store. She yelled and snapped at me. Sort of shoe on the other foot there, an inside place, I’m masked, she isn’t, she shoved into a few inches from me space…
Around here, masks are the oddity, even indoors, though I do see older people masking up again, and one of my students wore a mask the entire class yesterday, in a school full of unmasked people (except the vaccinated faculty, who follow CDC regulations).
Delta is scary, but I kind of doubt that woman chastised everyone she passed on the shopping street, because it would have taken her all day. Delta is scary but vaccination rates are high in Seattle, and especially so in my nabe. Delta is scary but she could have just walked around me. Since there is no outdoor mask mandate currently it’s a bit much to pick a fight with someone for not wearing a mask outdoors.
This may have been an encounter with an Actual Crazy Person.
I think a lot of us are just getting a little freaked out…the advice at our workplace is to just try to accommodate others and do what you need to do to protect yourself (psychologically as well as physiologically). We’ve never had an outdoor mask requirement, so few people wear them outside (I do when I’m going from one indoor place to another nearby indoor place and can’t be bothered to remove it), and we no longer have a mask requirement inside though it seems most people (including me) still wear them–I mean, why not? Hospitalisations and deaths have gone way down since the vaccine, but cases are still relatively high, so why take the risk, or expose anyone else to it?
I was at a concert last night that was in a large open building, but was two hours long, the longest I’ve committed to being inside with lots of strangers since last spring. The compere said ‘it’s a full house tonight so please wear a mask if you can’; I’m guessing maybe 80% of the audience complied. Unfortunately one of those who didn’t was sitting right next to me and intermittently coughing. I left at the interval, and explained why to the security staff.
Some people will take any difference between themselves and you to justify venom.
Happens to me on buses. Drives me nuts.
I think Skeletor @ 6 may be right – she may be not just belligerent and wrong-headed but actually wrong in the head. (Yes those are two different things.)