Friday, July 10, 2020

Life Without White Claw

For whatever reason, certain core products at the store where I work have been unavailable. Just temporarily but still. We received no White Claw this week. That stuff, and all hard seltzers, constitute a huge part of what we sell. Fun Fact: 27% of Earth’s water is trapped in cans of hard seltzer. And 73% of that is trapped in White Claw cans. Talk about popular.

I am not sure how these shortages owe to the pandemic but surely effects of the virus can be seen there and everywhere. And the people, us, you and me, just want normalcy. We want to go without masks, watch sports in a crowd, shuffle kids off to school, and sip chilled White Claw. There is nothing inherently wrong with such wishes, at least not until the pandemic started rewriting the rules.

A day may come when no White Claw can be had. Sports teams are trying to fire up but players keep scoring positive in Covid-19 testing. We are living life during war time and not showing a lot of grace about it. It may be human nature to argue with the implacable but the Coronavirus ain’t listening.

A customer said, in reference to those refusing to wear masks, ‘Just be a good citizen’. We are social animals. The pandemic inconveniences mean nothing. Our run-it-like-a-business Administration has continually tried to side with normalcy no matter how contraindicated. Normal to watch sports, normal to gather in crowds, normal to go without masks, normal to turn the ready profit. That normal no longer works. It can’t work. The Coronavirus just isn’t equipped to hear our hopeful bravado. White Claw may not save us.

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