Time For A Reality Check

The next wave of COVID-19 is upon us, and America faces a very different holiday season. We Jews have already faced our own pandemic holidays and we kinda know what they are like, what to expect, and how to shoulder through. The rest of the country has only had a taste of that kind of isolation and in limited quantities. Let me assure you, Passover with zoom seders was a challenge. Same thing for Rosh HaShanna and especially break-the-fast for Yom Kippur. Every Jewish holy day is centered pretty much around the concept something happened, we prevailed, let's eat. Any excuse to gather around an overcrowded dinner table is a good excuse. Or, rather, it was a good excuse. Not so much lately.

I would like to say something encouraging to all the gentile readers who are first encountering their less-than-full dinner tables, but there really isn't much to say except staying home and apart won't kill you. 

Gathering, on the other hand, might. 

Covid hot spots 11/16/2020

I am astounded by the pushback about sheltering at home and avoiding groups. A whole lotta imagination isn't required to understand the maps and charts showing the spread of a virus. Nor does it take all that much critical thinking to figure out that while lots of people survive the virus with little more than flu-like systems, other people are felled like spruce trees on a Christmas farm. Sure, they look real good standing up, but once they're down, they struggle to breathe until they die.

But then again, that might interfere with the annual tryptophan coma. 

Look at it this way: seatbelts are the law, so if you're caught without one on, you get a ticket. Refusing to buckle up a plane can get you bounced off. Babies and little kids are strapped into government evaluated car seats to protect them in crashes. Those same kids are taught at an early age to wear helmets on their bikes, and for the most part, they do that automatically. Wearing a helmet on a motorcycle is mandatory but lots of people choose not to wear one..and die if they fall off. Statistics support the research that these things save lives. If you choose to ignore common sense and are injured or die, then that is your choice for you. You can blame your parents or your peers for not insisting, but a sentient human knows that choices are just that: your choices. By extension, you own any consequences.

If you want to complain that wearing a mask is a violation of your Constitutional rights, why aren't you out there protesting seat belts, car seats, and helmets? Hey, those are the exact same things as masks...except for the part where not using them is not an existential threat to other people in the room. 

Choosing not to wear a mask and to socially separate is not the same kind of choice. In choosing not to wear a mask or maintain social distance, you are not choosing for yourself, you are, in fact, choosing for everyone around you. 

We are heading into what used to be annoyingly crowded airports, wondrously crowded malls, and family-crowded dinner tables. That's not going to happen this year...the crowded part. At least it's not going to happen if you have any sort of empathy chip in your brain. If you do, you realize crowds are not only not your friends, they can be the unwitting accomplices to acts of murder. 

I know most of my readers are sentient human beings and take this pandemic seriously. I know this because a lot of you write to me. And I appreciate the seriousness with which you describe your concerns and fears. They are not monsters in the closet or under the bed. They are very real and this wave of infection confirms the pandemic is real. Sure, lots of people get through it and get better. G-d willing, Mrs. Senior Son will be one of them. Our friend Mark wasn't; his family buried him last Wednesday. 

The ones who get better know this no joke and they will do what they must to protect other people from getting sick...and possibly sicker than they were. No one ever wants to believe that he or she is the one who spread the virus to someone who died. 

But if you happen to one of the ones who thinks, this won't happen to my family so we are going to gather en masse around the table for Thanksgiving, well, I hope you've all been sheltering at home away from others, getting a COVID test before Thursday, and have the good sense to social distance the place settings. Y'know why?  BECAUSE THIS ISN'T ABOUT YOU.

This is about NOT spreading COVID-19 around like good will, comfort, and joy. This is about NOT giving it to the checkout lady at the grocery store. 

Own your own behavior, accept the responsibility for a tiny little bit of tikkun olam, and be okay with not being the center of the known universe.

If you do that, you get to wear your mask proudly. You are officially part of the solution. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

If all the usual suspects aren't coming for dinner, 
consider roasting a turkey breast instead. 
You can still have all the other stuff ,
and the leftover bone makes great soup.