My faithful readers, you are probably wondering how I am holding up during this virus quarantine. I’ve received hundreds of emails asking me how I am doing, and instead of responding to each person individually, I will tell you in blog form.
A week before the stay at home orders began I got a job at a farm and ranch feed store. Some people were choosing to stay at home, but for the most part, it hadn’t begun to be law. Only the self-righteous on social media were telling any of us what to do and how to do it. Toilet paper sold out.
Then the stay at home orders was sent and I was told that I work at an essential business due to its supply of animal feed, and since I came from a place where I helped feed humans, animals seemed more important. So my life didn’t change. My wife’s workload only got harder, but she still had to go to work every day.
My company is giving us two dollars an hour bonus raise for a month, and if this continues, it will go on for longer. They have bought us masks, plexiglass windows to separate us from the customers. We have divided up the entrances and exits so that there is less congestion, and we have limited the number of people that can go into the store.
The people have been more or less outraged by all of the inconveniences and have told me as such . . . in strong language. I have been told that we are being taken over by the communists, that hospitals get money every time a person dies, that Governor Kate Brown is trying to secede with California to create a socialist country and enslave all of us, and none of these statements are exaggerations. The very idea of only entering one side of the store and leaving a separate exit has infuriated the proud Americans and their liberties.
Then after I get verbally abused by red-blooded-freedom-loving-Americans, I get told by my socialist freedom-hating friends that I am a complete bastard for going to work. Now, I’m not saying I think that staying home isn’t the best policy, but it is a policy that is only afforded by the very privileged. If you can stay home, either by your work allowing you remotely work or you can afford a month or two of no work, then by all means, but remember, there are a lot of us that can’t do that and have to show up and hope for the very best.
If you are a long time reader of this blog then you know that I love bringing up the time I got the cancers. One of the chemo treatments they gave me was Bleomycin, which one of the side effects is the weakening of the lungs. A case of COVID-19 has some lethal possibilities for me. I also have a compromised immune system as a result of the combination of several chemicals that were used to treat my cancer. I don’t go to work fearlessly and recklessly. I go with the idea that a selfish person or a person unknowingly will kill me.
It doesn’t help that the people I serve are so angry and scared of the government’s encroachment on their rights and liberties. Since I work somewhere that is not only upholding the state laws but also going over and beyond those requirements to ensure our safety and the safety of other customers, I represent all of that, so they let me know. They can’t talk to Gov. Brown or the CEO of my company, they can’t yell at any Senators or commie agitators. They have me. They have anyone that is in front of them because that is all they think about is how I, or whoever is standing behind that counter that can’t respond aggressively due to it being their livelihood, represent their dissatisfaction.
And everyone is treating this as a political fight. Those who believe this and those who believe that are snarling at each other from their trenches over dead man’s land and there are health care workers, fast food workers, pet store workers, farm and feed workers, delivery workers, and anyone else who had to be out in this shit storm in the middle.
Wasco county has 13 cases as of yesterday. It makes the people around here not believe that anything is happening. It makes it look like a government take over instead of a health crisis. I get asked at work by customers if I “buy this bullshit”, and I say I do, that I know some that have it and even some that have died from it. I tell them that I worry for my sister in law who is a nurse. I hope that I am implying the worry about other people other than the inconvenience this causes oneself. The ears are all stuffed with selfishness though.
I saw a whole mathematical post on the Facebooks yesterday that got me pretty upset, and it was someone who is politically middle of the road, smart, and usually very rational, but the post was implying that since fewer people die of COVID-19 in one month than automobile accidents, why don’t we ban driving? Boom! Logic! Open up the businesses! Daddy needs a haircut! Here is the problem with that logic, if I walked by you and your family with COVID-19 and one of your family gets sick and dies, guess who is responsible for that? Not me! I’m just exercising my god and constitution given rights! You will have to pay the medical bills, the funeral bills, you will have to deal with the hardship of grief and sadness, you will have to question the non-existent gods for the unfairness of this cruel uncaring world. Now, if I drank some booze, snorted some lines, and then crashed into your car killing the same family member I killed with COVID-19 in the alternative universe, then I would be responsible. My insurance would pay your bills and provide you some extra money to lessen the pain, if money can actually do that, of losing someone before their supposed time.
No person’s life should be a gamble. I like gambling with my own life once in a while, but I hope I never take another person’s life for granted and end up ending it. I had the stupid notion at the beginning of this that this would bring us closer together. This would make us united in a cause that should have an outcome that all people share, a healthier better society with the fewest deaths possible, but instead, it has actually made it worse. This might surprise you, but I can be a romantic optimist, but that just means I’m in a constant state of depression and disappointment with society.
Luckily I am stuck in beautiful countryside with my wife, who is my best friend, and my dog, who is also my best friend. (I can have more than one best friend you know. I have three actually. Now don’t be writing hate mail to me that I can only have one best friend. Look into your heart, can you believe that a person can only have one best friend?) We are surrounded by plateaus, plains, mountains, deserts, and forests that we can disappear into. We can also sit on our porch and listen to birds and watch deer search for acorns. We can also watch TV or play video games. The point is, while the world is broken and breaking even more, we are fine.
We are gardening and learning all about working the earth. I am roasting my own coffee which has been a success so far. I’ve been making stupid songs on Garageband that none of you will ever hear. (Note to self: delete songs in case I die of COVID-19) Our lives have not changed that much since we moved to the country. We think about going to the coast when this all over, but our day to day is exactly the same minus the extra stresses at work.
The world is so confusing and angry, but it is nice to escape it if I want to. I don’t mean my reality, but by changing my reality. I try to spend little time on social media or the internet in general. It is a horrible place both trying to sell you things and changing you so that you buy different things. Some of those things are ideas and beliefs. The point being, I look outside and watch the birds. I just saw a blue striped lizard disappear into the juniper.
Nicole and I are going to walk Rufus somewhere after she gets off work. I return to work tomorrow. Hopefully, I will be rested enough to take all the verbal abuse. I’m glad the company I work for tries to be supportive and goes beyond the bare expectation to protect us. It helps that we are a lot busier than last year. Before that though, I need to clean up the kitchen.
Someday we will look back on this with fondness and nostalgia and wish that we could go back to such a simpler time because it will be worse. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This quarantine has made me slow down. Even though I am retired I find busy stuff to do. Now I am setting a goal to read through a huge book about Leonardo DaVinci. It should take most of May. He probably has a thing or two to teach me. I find comfort in the spring plants and the bees. Gardening is not cancelled. I have been at it 30 years in Oregon so shoot me some questions if I can help. A writer I admire said we have been living in a snow globe that is constantly shaken. Now that everything has stopped we can either see clearly or freak out at the silence. Please keep writing and showing people the kind side even if they choose to rage against the night.