I was blessed today. Truly. By a little old lady cowering in the corner of the tram. Because, you see, yesterday I had this whole column planned about journalists’ inability to do math to save their lives and professional credibility. But as it turns out, and as I suddenly figured out, the Centre for Disease Control are just as bad at it.
So, I’m out of a column. And as I’m going home from work, stressed about my deadline, stepping onto the busy tram, this little lady with her coat lifted up over her mouth and nose, skitter away from me and begins with a muffled whimper to tell me to keep my distance.
Which afforded me a blessed opportunity to tell her to fuck off.
Look, I agree with Social Distancing protocols. I think people should stay the fuck home to the greatest possible extent that they can. If you so desperately need a hair-cut that you have to make yourself part of the problem, then maybe you should just shave it all off, you vain cretin. And I think protesters that defy lock-down regulations bloody well deserve the plague. Smooth that fucking curve all year! Wooo!
But you can’t expect every one else to quarantine when you won’t. Me? I’m one of the Expendable Essentials. I work as a teacher at an elementary school. I am mandated to keep working. Without protection. As if nothing’s wrong. If I’m not showing symptoms, my employer and my government tells me to keep at it. To babysit teenagers so that their moms and dads can keep working in transportation or healthcare or whatever is needed to keep the country spinning. And no, there aren’t any masks for public use distributed in my country. That sort of protection is spared for those of us that are critically exposed, like nurses and doctors, for whom the masks actually help. A lot.
Mine is not the choice to get on the tram every day, to and from work. Mine is not the choice to expose myself. The government has deemed me expendable.
So what’s your fucking excuse, you Canasta Club reject?! If you’re old, if you’re part of one of the risk groups, if you’re scared to catch your death from a tired school teacher minding his own business at the end of a long day, keeping his distance the best he can in public transportation during rush hour, why the fuck are you out and about on the town in the middle of a pandemic?!
Okay… we’re all stressed. The world was fucked up before, but 2020 sure as shit turned up the stakes. We’re all trying to make the best of it. Regardless if you’re isolated from loved ones, out of a job, or mandated to keep exposing yourself by going to work like nothing was wrong. And we should all try to respect each other, mind our distances, not make ourselves part of the problem, take care of each other, yada yada yada…
But you shouldn’t put in effort to place yourself more at risk. And don’t expect the general population to bow to your safety just so you can go along like you always have. Don’t be an idiot. Don’t be reckless. Don’t inflate your disputable significance by trying to make yourself a stain on my conscience.
And don’t get up in my fucking face after I’ve spent the last eight hours minding 450 nurgling teenagers. I’m already taking a fucking bullet for you and your precious society. So. Piss. Off.
/Sebastian Lindberg 28/4-2020
WastedWords 