Tuesday, September 7, 2021

Maybe I Need To Re-Think This "Risk Mitigation" Thing

I take responsibility for the choices I make when it comes to potentially contracting COVID-19.  I get that.  But I guess I still didn't really digest the possibility that, when riding from or to the Minnesota State Fair on the Park & Ride bus, even though they "strenuously encourage" all riders to wear masks, that some maskholes wouldn't.

It wasn't bad the first night, Friday, going there and back.  I saw a couple sans masks, and I made sure I stayed the hell away from them.  But on both segments there were few people riding and so I was able to keep my distance away from them.  Sunday was a different story.  I actually drove from one Park & Ride to another -- partly because the wait for the bus to the Fairgrounds at the first place was way too long -- a bus actually came but left without picking us up because I think the driver had to go on break -- but also because there were at least five people who seemed to be maskless, three of them being little shit teens.  The bus was right there when I parked at the second spot, but unfortunately a couple who sat behind me immediately pulled down their masks to begin talking.  This bus had another stop at a Park & Ride; that full bus immediately emptied by half, and so I just got up and sat two rows ahead of those damned offenders.

I was not so lucky on the way back.  Sunday night was a lot busier than Friday night -- Minnesotans finally getting up the nerve to go to The Great Minnesota Get-(Back-)Together because of the Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) -- and so I actually had to wait until a second bus came to bring us back.  It was packed.  And there were these two privileged outer-ring-suburb anti-masker pricks -- I'm guessing a mother and son -- who sat in front of me.  And since they were anti-maskers of course they were talking loudly and spewing their coronavirus-tainted breath the whole goddamn ride back to my car.  If I had a piece of cable wire, I would totally have had the fucking urge to strangle them both.  If you're not going to mask up, at least shut up.

But then I thought about all the other times I've been in social settings where the risk of getting coronavirus was just as high, if not higher.  I went to eat at Hooters, for example, and I was side-eyeing these four fat dudes who I think were conducting their fantasy football draft.  Sure, none of us were wearing masks because it's a, you know, restaurant (or "breastaurant").  But I didn't trust them that they were fully vaccinated.  And I still don't.  Meanwhile, on Thursday night, in the middle of the Gophers loss to Ohio St., I sat in the middle of an SUV with a guy who I have a strong belief is also an anti-vaxxer.  (I think he also believes in QAnon, but I say that only because I caught a passing glimpse of a text and my mind started to race; I don't really know.)  He may very well have given me the 'Rona, but I don't have the urge to strangle him to death because he was nice to me, and he helped me a lot when we were working.

When it comes to avoiding getting this virus, does it really matter if I have good feelings towards a fellow co-worker, or that I wanted to eat at a place where the waitresses flash their cleavage because it's a part of their uniform?  It really doesn't.  So instead of getting selectively pissed at strangers who do the same thing around me other strangers have, maybe I need to re-think going out.  If it's going to be hard for me to calm down when I see something that I'm afraid will give me corona, I should be more cognizant of all the situations in which I could get corona, not just the situations I don't like.

But still, those two assholes ... my fucking God.

No comments:

Post a Comment