How can they cram so much into one week? Just this week alone, I’ve got my son’s graduation, our end of season baseball banquet, and I’m doing the broadcasting for the Kansas 6A High School Baseball finals. And, yanno, maybe some day job work. We’re lucky that it’s rained 42 days in a row otherwise I’d need to mow the jungle that is my yard, too. So here’s a few scraps and bits to hold you over while I’m silently having my nervous breakdown and shopping for assisted living facilities for myself.
Whatever “side” you ended up on in the mask debate, can’t we all agree now that this is hopefully mostly behind us, how stupid the entire argument was? Was it really that hard to wear a scrap of fabric into Walmart for a year? And did we really need laws to force people against their own stupidity? I’m not sure there’s been a bigger kerfuffle about six inches of fabric since Adam and Eve stepped through the garden with their loincloths. And for what? An already pissed off country could get even more pissed off. Bull headed folks on one side, overzealous hall monitors on the other side. And the beat goes on. Yes, masks saved countless lives, and yes, forcing folks to wear them in restaurants (when they weren’t shut down) and retail stores were largely responsible. But the next time we need to make some quick rules, there’s gotta be a better way to get Chucklehead Anti-Whatever Guy to join in. Give out free NASCAR tickets or a meet-and-greet with Rudy Giuliani or something. Food for thought when the mask debate inevitably fires back up this fall. (I’m telling you, this ain’t over yet.)
One thing I am looking forward to seeing again, however, are concerts. I wasn’t a frequent attendee for concerts – maybe one or two a year – and occasionally catch live music at a bar, but it’s probably the thing I’ve missed the most over the last 18 months. Hearing that some big musical acts are hopefully heading back out on the road (safely) is encouraging. Although most of the acts I want to see are only 18 months older – i.e. The Rolling Stones, Genesis, and Foo Fighters. So I’m hopefully not going to see Mick Jagger rolling around in his wheelchair singing Under My Thumb. Still, I’ll probably still go see it.
One thing I haven’t missed is a commute. I’ve been working from home for 14 months now and except for a very few inconveniences, I haven’t missed driving to work or working in an office one bit. There’s talk at my company about possibly heading back into the office in August or September, but I gotta think that office life will forever be changed after this. We’re talking about possibly going back permanently – but only three days a week. Working from home has become so pervasive this past year, there’s really no reason for companies like Cerner and Garmin to consider ever building a new building. I do think that companies should’ve been paying a little extra to us all along for “office” amenities. I still know a co-worker that’s working from her kitchen table and another one hunched over an ottoman. Equity in working from home needs to come next.
Finally, there’s been an uptick in incidents of hate against Asians and Jewish people in the wake of… well, I’m not really sure what this is caused by. You technically can point to COVID originating in Asia and ongoing fighting in the Holy Lands between Palestinians and Israelis. But why here? Other than everyone is mad at everyone else all the time. Being angry or doing harm to Jim standing next to you in line at Price Chopper because he looks Asian or thinking Jill over there needs her tires slashed because she’s probably Jewish just seems like the lowest point of stupid. We’ve got better things to do with our time than hate someone sitting next to you at a soccer game because of the way they look. We’ve found so many ways to hate each other over the past several years. He’s wearing a mask. She looks Asian. That fella is probably BLM. I don’t like her because she drives a Kia. At some point I need to fall back to the sage words of my father when I was 14 and he was driving my buddy and me somewhere. “Do you ever listen to yourselves talk?”
Maybe when we can all start going to concerts again, we can focus our hatred on Mick Jagger’s wheelchair.
(When he’s not analyzing kerfuffles, you can catch Chris Kamler on Twitter as @TheFakeNed)