Rage

 Herself speaks.

I went with Offspring the Third to his college city, to help him tidy up and organize and prepare for the semester ahead. He's a good egg, and a good traveler. And, apparently, is sufficiently jaded that he just assumes people out in public will be terrible about mask compliance and is unruffled.

I, on the other hand, am enraged. ENRAGED. SO ANGRY. See that sign on the gas station door? "Masks required." Yet at least eight people who wandered in and out while I was fueling up, had no masks on. And the two people behind the counter? Also, no masks. This is why we cannot have nice things. 

After finishing up with Offspring the Third, I checked into a local hotel to get a bit of rest before returning to the road early the next morning.  There was a police car outside the main hotel entrance, and the door was locked. I had to ring to be let in. There was a police officer in the lobby as well, lurking but clearly visible. He kept a tight eye on me and the clerk who checked me in. The clerk wore her mask under her nose. 

What danger was there, I wondered, that required such safety precautions? And why is this pandemic not similarly treated with precautions? Honestly, I am much more likely to die of COVID than I am of a random gun-slinging hooligan breaking into a Holiday Inn Express lobby. 

On the way home, mask-free people continued to appear everywhere. The rest stop. The sandwich place. The gas stations. I avoided humanity as much as possible. 

I may never get over the anger I feel. I used to think that people were, on a whole, generally good. Yet now I look around me, and I see people who cannot be bothered to cover their faces to try to prevent The Plague from continuing to spread and ruin lives. 

There are political and gender facets to the non-mask problem. I don't even have the energy to delve into these things.  Because I am too ENRAGED.