My mask protects you; your mask protects me. My mask protects you; your mask protects me. My goddamned mask protects you; your goddamned mask protects me. It’s a mantra. Except that so damned many aren’t wearing masks. For all the good it does, I feel like I should be muttering “I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.”
We do laundry once a month now. We shop once a week. If that. I’m an essential employee. I work in a hospital. I don’t get to shelter in place. I don’t get to hide from the ‘rona. I get to stand.
Stand right here with Kali Mata and the All Father and the Ancestors and the Lwa at my side. I get to stand right here with the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Stand with the God of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah. I get to drive to work and whisper “how lovely are your tents, oh Jacob” when I see the hospital, because a hospital is a place of worship if there ever was one, and whisper the bracha before donning my mask. This is what I do to try to do the best I can to help people get the care they need.
And the willful ignorance and snide denial of science sticks in my craw like a bone.
So, yesterday when I was at the grocery store, I had had enough.
I was in the grocery store, in a mask and gloves, because I’m polite like that. A mother and her two daughters came onto the aisle with me. No masks. No gloves. The mother said something about how stupid I was in my mask. They got right up in my space.
So, looking directly at them, I farted. A big, loud fart, as impolite as I could manage. The kind of thing you shudder to do in public because it’s so embarrassing and no one likes to admit that human butts can do such things. They stared at me, in abject horror. I laughed and said, “Bet you wish you had a mask now, don’tcha?”and walked away.
#ItHadToBeDone
Lori O'Ferell 