What I Look Forward to the Most as Mask Mandates are Repealed
In just 10 days, Oregon will repeal its indoor mask mandate. While I have some mixed feelings about this decision, given that there are currently 2,000 Americans still dying every day from COVID and many more continuing to become infected by the virus, I think I am going to be most relieved by a certain side effect of no longer seeing people in masks when I go to a grocery store or coffee shop: It will no longer be apparent who the assholes in our society are.
Over the last year or so, although I very infrequently went out to shop, when I did go to a store for groceries I would inevitably encounter an arrogant, self-absorbed douchebag not wearing a mask — despite large signs posted at the store entrance stating that masks were required, and despite the DB seeing everyone else around them inside the store wearing a mask. (And always, the DB was a privileged white person. Not surprising, as people of color wouldn’t dare be so arrogant, lest the white lynch mob pounce. But I digress…)
It takes a certain kind of asshole to not only disregard consideration for other persons around them who are trying to keep themselves and others safe by the small gesture of putting on a mask when entering an indoor public space, but to also blatantly disregard a requirement posted by the store or management of the public space that everyone put on a mask when entering the store or space. And, of course, to stroll about as though unaware that everyone around them is wearing a mask.
And that is what I look forward to most: no longer knowing who the assholes are, as evidenced by their behavior. I can return to the fantasy that people are good, kind, considerate of others. That, particularly in the face of a public emergency, all of us in society are willing to put aside our ideological differences for the common good. That we rise above when collectively challenged.
Of course, this will be just a fantasy. The assholes will still be ever present. And in the next epidemic we will no doubt find them, once again, strutting like peacocks displaying their arrogance, ignorance and self-absorption. Sadly, to the detriment of the rest of us.
