Defiance!

I'm a people watcher; not the creepy sit in the bushes with a pair of binoculars sort of people watcher, but the kind that notices patterns in people. Oftentimes it's subtle things, things that to others may go unnoticed, but to me, they stand out like a sore thumb or a man bun.

Ever since this experiment in lunacy began a few weeks ago, I've been noticing a pattern. It is something so consistent that I've concluded it's not an aberration or exception. It's not the older folks that are walking around in makeshift hazmat suits as though they had full-blown aids, and anything from a paper cut to a mosquito bite would do them in. Those folks are usually wearing their Vietnam Vet hats, pushing their shopping carts sans surgical gloves, and acting as close to normal as these abnormal times allow.

It's the quasi-revolutionaries, the wannabe Che Guevaras that are wiping down milk cartons before they put them in their carts, and look as though they're ready to go for a walk on the moon. It's the twenty and thirty-somethings, the keyboard warriors calling for revolution from their mother's basement that is scared witless, and likely wearing adult diapers in case the fear of being in public is too much for their bowels to handle.

The most vulnerable seem to be taking this situation in stride. The pampered and the coddled are losing their minds and denouncing anyone who would dare suggest that it's time to get back to life.

Yesterday via a conversation with my little brother, I found out one of the big box stores in the area will be mandating facemasks come next month. Since I shop there on occasion, I spent the rest of the day in an introspective sort of funk because I needed to understand why I bristled against the idea so viscerally.

As of this morning, I think I've figured it out. To be perfectly clear, no, I will not wear a mask! It's not because I think it's reminiscent of 1940's Germany, or because it's a sign of subjugation, it's because I refuse to validate the narrative. I refuse to give credence to presuppositions that data has already disproven. I refuse to fuel the panic by looking like an extra in a bad TV drama, and walking around as though this thing had a 90% mortality rate.

Just as I refuse to call a biological male Jenny, even though his name is Bob, I refuse to put on a muzzle and mittens to go buy a can of tuna and some baked beans. I will not feed the delusion, whether it's one person's delusion, or a general one brought on by mass hysteria.

As a private corporation, stores and businesses can demand whatever they wish of their potential customers; as a private citizen, I can refuse to do business with any corporation that requires unreasonable things of me. So, yes, I will stop shopping at this particular store. I will pay a few cents more for whatever I need somewhere else, and if need be even drive across state lines, because the last time I checked this was not the Socialist Republic of America, at least not on paper.

If acts of defiance are not forthcoming, it will be interpreted as acquiescence. If the foolishness they are proposing is deemed as palatable, then this will become the new normal, and nevermore will you be able to go outside without a piece of cloth over your face, and fear in your eyes. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea Jr.