Karen vs the Mask (A Pandemic Tale)

I had my first Pandemic Karen moment yesterday. The few previous negative interactions have been more certified asshole vs my angelic nature. Yesterday was a matter of entitlement.

I saw in a glimpse someone enter briskly as I stood at the counter with a customer. My colleague on the floor noticed her masklessness and spoke up. She said masks make her sick and hustled on. He was with a customer and didn’t go beyond that.

When done with my customer I saw the perp just gabbing with someone. It angried up my blood, I will admit. I went to her and told her she had to leave if she won’t wear a mask. She was outraged. Masks make her ill. I didn’t negotiate, I said you must leave. Can I buy this 12-pack of Sam Summer Ale. No, you have to leave. And blah blah blah. Just go!

The person she was with offered to buy the beer. Karen told my colleague and me that breathing co2 makes her sick, and the moisture... What exactly about the moisture? I don’t know. Neither of us wanted to hear it.

A masked Karen could have been in an out with her Sam Summer in three minutes. She seemed a healthy forty years old and could handle the ravages of co2 and moisture. That’s an assumption, I know, but it is not like she cited emphysema as why she refuses masks. I have had two customers who made me think they should go without. They both were older and breathed with effort. They managed.

A man was at the counter with my colleague. He asked if many people go without mask. It has become a rare occasion, he was told, and often enough they go get their mask without reminder.

The guy turned out to be a friend of Karen, came with the other woman. He said in Kentucky, masks are not required. He went on to say he doesn’t believe in wearing masks. He wears them out of respect, or courtesy. He added that he is in the healthcare industry.

Not specifying in what capacity, as doctor, nurse, or technician, leaves one to wonder to what degree he is in the industry. I shrug. Karen speaks of illness but she means discomfort. The words are not synonymous.

Karen entered the store as if it were her right to go unmasked. The answer to that is: 1) The state has issued a mandate. 2) The store can set its own policy. Showing customers that the store takes this shit seriously is an act of reassurance.

Beth went into the hardware store the other day. A kid sat at the register without a mask. Beth pressed him to put one on, and he ignored her. Finally another employee said, just put the mask on, it is making customers uncomfortable. That’s all, just do it for that. Amidst the world’s problems, mask-wearing does not scale.

The Problem is Pandemic

If you need another clue about the effects of the pandemic around you: a shortage of Budweiser beers currently exists. Now I am too good-looking to make sense, and the shortage is modest, probably just local (I will explain in a bit), but we are talking Budweiser, part of the conglomerate‘s conglomerate, AB-InBev.

Right now, some of the popular package sizes for Bud products are unavailable from the distributor. No twelve packs and eighteen packs to be had going into Fourth of July weekend (which lasts like ten days). That is not how Budweiser works. The spigot to that ocean of beer should always remain open.

Earlier this year, bar versions of Bud and Bud Light were offered at discount to retailers. It’s the same product as the retail version but packaged in a slightly cheaper box. While retail has enjoyed good sales during the pandemic, on premise obviously has been zero. Distributors have yet to bring back all of the sales staff that were furloughed back when restrictions were firmest. This shit ain’t over.

I can’t explain the unavailability of Bud products—too good-looking, like I said—but I think it is all cannedproducts. Is there an embargo on Chinese tin? The company that collects the deposit bottles and cans from us appears ready to go under.

We know that those states that rushed to open are rethinking that tactic. I detect a more dubious note regarding sports purveyors for 2020. Meanwhile Trump threatens funding if military bases honoring Confederate heroes are renamed. More shit, same fan.

Floating Coast by Bathsheba Demuth

This book. Beth heard of it somehow and ordered it. She is attracted to things Alaskan, having lived there for years. The plight—must use that word—of native people there is also an interest and concern. While Beth studies for the real estate appraisal license, I have free access to the Floating Coast.

I have only read a couple of chapters but can assure that the book seethes with power. It describes the hunting and killing of whales by the native population and by the crazed American commercial fleet. I use the word ‘crazed’ because of the thorough, monomaniacal dedication to suck every last penny from the enterprise. Crazed too for the dangers faced for economic glory. Place that fat fact next to today’s ghastly balance between keeping people alive, or the economy.

Demuth brings in capitalism and socialism, shamanism, and conflicting world views, while delineating the usage of dead whales as energy sources. I remember the heroic wonder when learning about whaling as a child. The hunt of those whalers, emanating largely from Massachusetts, never suggested the native necessity nor the wholesale commercial slaughter of these creatures. The shanties were pretty good, tho.