Six Foot Blunder

It's Spring in the magical year of our Lord Fauci, 2020. I’m standing outside in the rain to get into a fucking Home Depot. There is a long line and we are all obediently standing more or less on the stickers that have been lovingly applied to the concrete. “Please practice social distancing, Remain 6 feet apart” reads the holy commandment. At least they said please.

 

There is an employee with a counter at the door and he is grudgingly letting in people to the store like he’s a bouncer outside Studio 54 and its 1975. Put aside the fact that the Home Depot is the largest structure in any town. Forget that the cavernous space the size of an airplane hangar. Somehow, those tricky Covid viruses will find a way to sneak past my mask and past the other guy’s mask and get in his body and kill him if we put too many people in the hardware store. 

There is a burly guy in front of me who looks like Andrew Dice Clay without a sense of humor. He keeps looking back at me with disapproval, hoping I will get the hint. Finally, his patience reaches its threshold and he snarls at me 

“Six feet, dude!” 

Apparently my social distancing skills are lacking in his mind and he was just trying to be helpful. In all honesty, I was probably standing five feet instead of the magical holy number of six. Was I doing it purposely? Maybe subconsciously. Forgive me lord Fauci, I have sinned against thee!

He managed to belch a question at me with a supercilious sense of self satisfaction “Don't you watch the news!!!??” 

"I think maybe you watch too much news, pal.” I said. The sound came out somewhat muffled through the cloth of my face diaper. “What did you say!?” He heard me.

If this was the free-wheeling pre-plague days, he might have belted me by now, I thought. Thank you, Covid!

Back to our six foot standoff.

Me, being me, I held my ground and did not budge. I pointed out that we were standing outside and both wearing masks, and of course masks are magical protectors, so what is he worried about? 

He was not swayed by what I saw as a rational and reasonable argument in accordance with establishment mask logic and he bellowed this time... “Six feet or I’ll make you move six feet!!’ 

I said “OK, genius, how are you going to make me move without breaking your own six feet rule?”*

He looked like this hurt his pride and his CNN-addled cognitive abilities. I scanned the crowd, who were all looking at us now, and realized that every single one of these masked men were on his side.

We are in this together, I thought, and we are in a lot of trouble.

I took off my mask as final FU and calmly but swiftly walked away and drove to the nearest Lowes

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*SIX-FOOT Update: Now that he has left government, Fauci is finally speaking at least some of the truth about government policies and Covid. For instance, saying the six-feet rule for social distancing “sort of just appeared” without a solid scientific basis. That’s one of the admissions that Members of Congress say the former National Institutes of Health potentate made in two days of closed-door testimony to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. Officials like Fauci, nonetheless promoted the arbitrary rule because they didn’t trust Americans to understand scientific nuance or, for that matter, anything. Businesses, churches and schools that weren’t forced to close had to spend money reconfiguring their operations to comply with these unscientific government guidelines

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