Pandemic Journal - Day 228

Today is election day in the United States.

It's not a boxing match. It's a vote.

So go vote, if you haven't already done it early in person or by mail.

DON'T EXPECT TO KNOW THE RESULTS TONIGHT. IT'S AN ELECTION, NOT A HORSE RACE.

*********************************************************

Sunday, I went to CVS to get a sling for my husband's arm. He has re-injured the hand he caught in the hay baler in 2014. He had an x-ray but it is swollen and I fear ligament damage. He can't get in to the see the hand specialist until November 23.

With luck, it will be all better by then and he won't need the appointment. But we don't generally have that kind of luck.

Anyway, I hadn't realize the store did not open until 10 a.m. on Sundays. I arrived just a few moments before 10. Several people meandered around the door. None had on masks. None attempted to keep their distance from one another, at least, certainly not by six feet. They were far apart that I could see they weren't The Brady Bunch and didn't know one another, though.

I watched them all go inside. I waited in the car until they all came out again, and then I went inside. It cost me 10 minutes of time and gave me a great deal more confidence in my entry in the store.

This would be why as of today, Botetourt County has 487 cases of Covid. I don't know how many of those are active cases. We've had a rise of 186 cases in 14 days. So we're averaging about 13 new cases a day.

The courthouse is currently closed for "deep cleaning" because someone had the virus. 

I suppose some people will wake up in the morning thinking, "Oh, the Democrat hoax is over, we can all get back to our lives," but the joke will be on them. I am sure the five people I know who have died from this virus won't be returning to their lives, nor with their family's lives ever be the same.

But I get it. This is 'MeriKa, and nobody tells us what to do . . . except wear shirt and shoes in restaurants, wear seat belts, don't drink and drive, don't run red lights or stop signs, you must use turn signals and have your car inspected, carry insurance or pay a fee on your vehicle if you don't, you have to have a driver's license to drive on the roads, you pay your taxes, you don't steal, don't kill, don't rape, burn, pillage and plunder. 

Wear a mask? No way!

So the case numbers rise. It's in the schools. People go the stores with no regard for anyone else. I won't say we're the most selfish bunch of people ever to walk the planet - not sure who would be first, actually, if not us - but we're a mighty close second.

This has hit home as people close to me have had Covid. But their story is not mine to tell, except to say I am glad they have recovered, and I am sorry that one person I know passed away. I hope there is no future damage to the ones who survived, no return of the virus in some bizarre fashion, like the chickenpox turns into shingles years from the time of the initial infection. Or the way cold sores come back when a body is stressed. I hope for no ongoing issues.

Nowadays, we don't know what is appropriate action. Everything has to be thought out. Is going to the chiropractor safe? Can I have the furnace checked? Is it safe to go to the grocery store? Do I have my mask, my Covid shoes, my hand sanitizer?

Living through a pandemic was not on my checklist of things I wanted to do. It had never occurred to me, actually, that we would have one. 

There was a time, about 25 years ago, when I felt secure in this country. I felt like the FDA was on top of bad medications, that the federal government would stop the sell of toys that injured children, enforce recalls of vehicles that exploded without warning, the U.S. Postal Service would always bring me my mail, and that my Social Security would be there to supplement what I saved when I retired.

I don't think that way anymore. Perhaps I lived in a fantasy world, but up until the last four years, I really did think the government, en masse, was on my side. Even when George W. Bush was president, I never thought the government - or my neighbors - would actually wish me ill. 

I thought the people who ran the EPA really cared about the environment and water and air quality. I thought the people who did the day-to-day things, the little government workers, were doing the things necessary to ensure quality of life for most people. Ok, so some of that was naïve - obviously people of color, immigrants, and others (including women, of which I am one), were not being cared for as much as some. And of course there were outliers who seemed to want us all to die at a certain age because they didn't want to pay Medicare or Social Security. But they were not the norm.

Or so I thought.

And now we basically have no government, and have had a mostly non-functioning fascist oligarchical banana republic for four years. We can't trust that our generic drugs hold up to standards, can't be sure that the car batteries won't explode, can't count on Social Security being there when I do reach the age when I can draw it, and can't count on my bills coming in the mail on time.

We also have people who are calling for a Civil War. Over what? Because I want the military to buy fewer F-57s or whatever they are and spend more to ensure that you are taken care of if a drunk driver smashes into you and leaves you brain damaged? That's worth shooting me over? Really?

Or maybe it's because I want women to have control over their own bodies. You're going to kill me because you want to save a life? You do see there is no logic in that, right? You're not exchanging a dead person for a live one. It doesn't work that way.

You're going to kill me simply because I want more for you? Better services, better healthcare, better roads, better schools, better job security?

Because basically that's what I want. I think the government is the best way to deliver it - when the government is functioning properly and run by adults who have the best interest of others on their mind, and aren't trying merely to line their own pockets, or those of their friends.

I remember when the government used to be functional. When we actually had one. Sometime before Moscow Mitch took over the Senate.

Never mind, though. Regardless of who wins the election, this country is done. The great experiment in democracy is over. Who knew that the way to eliminate the U.S. Constitution was take the office of president and then totally ignore the document?

But here we are.

In a few years I predict we will not be 50 states. We will be clusters of Commonwealths or Republics or whatever they want to call themselves.

And the losers, as we always are, will be we the people, while the corporations and those who lust for power will laugh all the way to their islands in the Mediterranean, glorying in the wealth that should have been yours and mine.