OK, OK, before you run away screaming at the title of this post, please note that it is NOT a political post. And the fact that I even have to say that peeves me to the extreme.
[Also, one quick point to make. If I get particularly nasty, as I tend to do when talking about this, I will say the word “you” quite a bit. If you are a mask-wearer and/or are fully vaccinated (or on the path to it), I am not referring to you specifically. I am referring to the eggheads. And you will know exactly who I mean in a moment if you don’t already.]
In this post, I want to talk vaccines and masks. AND AGAIN, THIS IS NOT A POLITICAL POST. Let me make one thing crystal clear to every single person who may be viewing these words: This is not a political issue. This is not a matter of personal freedoms. This is not a “right to choose” type situation. (Oooo, trigger phrase there!)
This is a matter of PUBLIC HEALTH.
Everyone is sick and tired of the pandemic. We’re tired of hearing about it, we’re tired of the restrictions that have been imposed because of it. We just want it to end.
AND IT CAN.
Except for two things: Certain members of certain parties are politicizing the means to slow and/or stop the spread of the disease. As a result, there is a percentage of the population, on all points of the political spectrum (it’s not about politics!), who refuse to wear masks and will not, under any circumstances, get vaccinated.
Against the pandemic they wish would end. Seriously, it seems that the people most vocal about wanting it all to be over are the ones preventing it from actually being over.
THAT’S YOUR ANSWER, RIGHT THERE! Just get the poke and the jab! I honestly do not understand why this is such a hot-button issue! We, as a civilization (at least in the United States — I will not speak for any other populace) have been dealing with vaccinations our entire lives. When we are children, we are vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella (whatever that is), polio, and other things I don’t happen to recall at this time. Because of vaccines, small pox is extinct. If you step on a nail, particularly if it’s rusty, you get a tetanus shot. (That’s also a vaccine, and it prepares you for the soreness you get with the COVID vaccine.) If you are bitten by a strange animal that may itself be rabid, you may have to endure what I understand is a painful series of rabies vaccine shots.
Everyone pushing back against vaccine mandates and “passports” seems to have forgotten that you were required to have this to GO TO SCHOOL. As far as I know (it’s been decades since I have been in school), that’s still the case.
What’s one more on the list?
(Obviously this tirade does not include the people who are unable to get the vaccine because of being too young or immuno-compromised. I feel particularly bad for them that so many are being right prigs about this.)
And masks? No one likes wearing masks. I absolutely fnarging HATE wearing a mask. I already don’t breathe all that great due to my weight and bad health habits. But I wear it when I’m in public spaces. Why? Because it’s the right thing to do to protect myself and everyone around me.
This is not about personal liberty. It’s about public health. (Yup. Already said it, and I’ll keep saying it until it sinks into your thick skull.)
Little Sally’s right to survive this pandemic supersedes my right to show my ugly mug in public. So I put on a superhero-related piece of cloth to show Sally and everyone else that I care about their lives.
I have said this before, and I will say it until my last wheezing, mask-covered breath: If this were TRULY a matter of personal freedom, if this decision you think is yours to make were to affect only you? I’d say go for it. Go out and get yourself killed by this disease. I will shed no tears for your stupidity.
But it doesn’t affect JUST YOU. It affects every single person you encounter. Because people like you refuse to wear a mask, letting the virus spread more easily. Because you won’t tolerate some inconvenience by being poked in the arm, you make it more likely you’ll catch it and pass it on. Letting it further mutate into the DELTA variant, which is more contagious and causing numbers to skyrocket in places with lower vaccine numbers.
These places are out of hospital beds for the people that actually NEED them. Because people like you who could have prevented even catching it are taking those beds up instead.
No. I am not going to be nice or diplomatic about this. I’m done with that. If you won’t be part of the solution, you ARE the problem. I don’t care if you’re R, D, L, I, or OTHER. You, the person who refuses to be vaccinated against COVID, and I DON’T GIVE A FIG ABOUT YOUR REASONS, are a piece of crap who is killing the people around you.
And by letting it continue to mutate, you may end up making the vaccines moot. At that point, we will be right back where we were, and then what?
Well, for one thing, it will be YOUR FAULT. Not the Old Guy currently in the Oval Office. Not the Orange Guy who got voted out of that office.
Yours.
Just get the fnarging vaccine. Wear a fnarging mask. Get the fnarg over yourself and HELP instead of whining about being “oppressed” and “censored” or whatever else it is you’re crying about.
(As an aside, if you’re so censored, how are you so fnarging LOUD about it??)
Get vaccinated so we can end this.
WRITING IN PUBLIC
I have officially put Hero Mom (working title) on the shelf for the time being. Instead I have written a couple words here and there on things that have no future. I am trying to get in the habit of writing again. It’s going slowly. I have only written a few hundred words since the last entry (for which I have corrections, it turns out). But at least it’s a non-zero number. And is likely to get higher by the time this posts.
This serves the dual purpose of boosting my word count to try to maybe achieve the goal by the end of the year and as training for November. I do NOT want to be doubtful of the outcome like last year.
Meanwhile, I am attending a writing thing at this moment. (About two weeks ago, as this releases.) I could have used the time to write more of the useless vignettes, but it felt like a good excuse to get a jump-start on the blog post. I already had my topic. I’ve had it in my brain for at least a week. The news out of Florida and Texas is so ridiculous… but I have to stop there. This is not a political post, and this is the WRITING segment.
Deep Breath.
I think I’m resigning myself to a life of being a horror writer. I’m planning to write Comedy of Terrors II for NaNoWriMo this year. If I do ever write and publish Hero Mom, I will probably do so under a non-secret pen name. (Graham Blake or Darren Graham or something like that, which would incorporate my pseudonym’s middle name. I’m saving D.G. Blake for the romance novel I will never write.)
GAMING THINGS
The second August session has not yet happened. (That will be next weekend as I write this.) Only one session to report, and it was short a person (again), so the rest of us played Jackbox.
Our absentee has been very busy lately, working a lot of overtime because of reasons.
(How was THAT for not violating NDA?)
Hopefully, next week will see all four of us together again and we can fight the next bad critter in our Pathfinder game.
BLOG CORRECTIONS
Instead of editing the previous entry like I probably should, I am going to issue a correction instead. In the WRITING IN PUBLIC segment last month, I said there were no words in July except for that entry. Well, the July entry (goal check-in) was WRITTEN in July, which I had forgotten. So while there were no words between entries, there WERE words in July. My apologies for the error.
I also stated in the GAMING THINGS segment of that same post how we had skipped a session because of the holiday, I had (again) forgotten the real reason. It was the holiday weekend, but it was for a birthday, not the holiday itself. The reason I forgot this one was that I was unable to make the meetup work with my friend, so I was not able to take him to lunch. It was sad-making, but when you actually have more than just a few friends, sometimes it’s hard to juggle the less important ones.
I’d imagine.
WRAPPING UP
Once again, I feel the seething hatred emanating from a segment of the population, even though only one person ever reads this stupid thing I do. I won’t apologize for my venom. It is well-earned by those who are exacerbating the problem under the guise of “liberty” and “freedom.”
Get your poke. Get your jab. Suffer through a day of side-effects so we can stop this crap and more people don’t have to die from a disease that (as of now) has become preventable.
Be love. Be mercy.
Be vaccinated.