The Absurdity

Or, more Scamdemic nostalgia

In thinking back on the Scamdemic, I no longer feel the same level of outrage about the endless lies as I did then. I’ve come to accept that the default position should be to assume that all news media, politicians, “health” officials, doctors, and “experts” are lying, until proven otherwise. Now I find myself laughing at the absurdity of what happened. There were so many examples, I’m sure I’ve forgotten most of them. But here are a few that are stuck in my memory:

Testing: despite the presence of the Most Deadly Virus in History, you had to take a test to know if you were a “case”, i.e., sick.

Restaurant masking: we were told we must wear a mask while walking, but not while sitting. It was fun to come up with silly theories to explain this, like: the virus only strikes moving targets; or there’s a virus-laden atmospheric layer that lies just above the level of a seated person’s head.

State-line quarantines: in Vermont, we were told that if we dared to cross into New Hampshire, we had to quarantine for two weeks when we returned home. Again, more silly theories come to mind. One I came up with was that the virus sits on the border, waiting to jump on anyone who goes over that line. So you’d be in danger if you crossed the bridge over the Connecticut River from Norwich VT to Hanover NH, because the wily virus was sitting right there in the middle of the bridge, 24 hours a day, ready to strike. Yet the virus knew only to strike Vermonters. The implication was that NH had much more of the scary virus than VT, despite the states’ proximity and the lack of giant plexiglas shields between them. And speaking of which…

Plexiglas shields: these things suddenly showed up everywhere, including, to my dismay, the library where I was working. The shields had big holes in them, for passing money or other items back and forth, and the shields only covered a few square feet. But somehow, those wily viruses suddenly became stupid when they encountered these shields, and just couldn’t figure out how to go over or around them, or through the big gaping holes.

Curbside pickup: supposedly the virus was so scary that you’d die if you went in a store and bought stuff that a plague-carrying clerk handled while ringing up your purchases. But if you sat in the your car, and a plague-carrying clerk handled your items while bringing them to your car, you were safe.

Dancing nurses: we were told that the hospitals were overloaded beyond 100% capacity. Yet somehow the nurses had time to choreograph, rehearse, perform, and film professional-quality dance routines in those very same overcrowded hospitals.

Anti-social distancing: the virus was so deadly and scary, that even if you were out hiking in the woods, in fresh air, far from civilization, you still had to wear a mask or cover yourself with plastic wrap. And in keeping with this absurd idea, playgrounds and beaches had to be closed, despite also being in fresh air with breezes and sunlight.

One-way arrows: being forced to walk in only one direction in a grocery store aisle confused the wily virus so much that it couldn’t strike you.

Six-foot safe: the virus, despite being omnipresent, couldn’t get you if you stood six feet away from every other person. Five feet eleven inches was unsafe, but six feet one inch was totally fine. I have not confirmed whether in Europe they were a little more lenient, using a 2 meter standard; if so, it would prove that the virus would respect local customs and measurement standards.

Vaccine passports: somehow the Glorious Goo would protect you even if you had it injected more than a year before, despite the introduction of necessary “boosters” in that one year period. I learned this amazing fact when a music venue in my little Vermont town wouldn’t let me in, because I had never taken the Goo, yet they let in a friend who’d taken the Pfizer Goo a year earlier and never had a “booster”. Apparently, my friend merely had to demonstrate that she was a Good Compliant Person, and not actually provide proof of “boosted-ness”. The Sonata piano camp that excluded me also had a similar loophole: they wanted you to be “boosted” but didn’t make it a hard requirement. It’s amazing to think that this loophole was allowed to exist despite the presence of the Most Deadly Virus in History.

Car masking: the virus was so omnipresent and fast that it could enter your car even if you were driving alone, at high speed, with the windows rolled up. The only way to protect yourself was to wear a mask.

Masking in general: of course, the whole mask idea was absurd. Somehow, a piece of cloth with huge pores in the material could protect you from something so small that it could only be seen with an electron microscope.