A Lunch At The Coronavirus Cafe
Life Lessons Over a Pretty Good Salad.
A few days ago, I went to lunch at a local diner. I was craving a Greek Salad, but we were out of olives. Most of the small restaurants around here are Greek-owned, and it is not hard to find a good salad.
There is a small place nearby that I had not been to in a while. I decided to try it again. When I arrived at eleven-thirty, the building was two-thirds empty. I wondered whether it was due to the food or something else. A lone waitress was hurrying between tables, taking orders, and delivering meals.
I took a booth in the back and looked at the menu. Though vaccinated, I do not sit at the counter anymore. I prefer a booth or a table these days. When the waitress arrived, I ordered the Greek salad and gyro combo along with an iced tea.
While I waited, I looked around. It looked like a crowd of regulars.
There was a group of five seniors sitting up front. They talked and laughed in what looked like a weekly get-together. In the early days of the virus, they were the most vulnerable. They spent that first year hiding in their homes, alone and afraid. They had their groceries delivered and saw their grandchildren through a window. Some of their friends were not that lucky. They did not make it. There was not even a funeral.
They were the first vaccinated. Along with protection from the virus, the shots gave some a new appreciation for life. Some might be happier now than they were pre-pandemic. Like Scrooge, they received the gift of seeing how miserable their life had become. And they decided not to go back. They will be the first in line when the booster becomes available.
Across from me sit two women wearing medical scrubs. They might have been nurses on their lunch break. Unlike the seniors up front, they look tired as they sit and pick at their food. They have that ten-mile stare that you sometimes see in combat veterans. Burned out hospital workers are leaving their profession in droves. Every health care facility around here has a help wanted sign at the curb. It has become a cliché to say that they are on the frontlines. But they are.
The waitress brought my order and apologized for the wait. She said that they were short-handed, and she was covering every table.
When I asked why she said that it was because of the virus.
The other servers had quit because they did not want to get sick, and she was the only one available to work the lunch rush.
I asked her why, if it was so dangerous, was she still there? She told me that her parents were the owners. She and her husband and another sister ran the place. I told her that I had not noticed anything unusual about the wait for my order and that she was doing fine.
While I was eating my salad, two men entered and took the booth in front of me. They looked like painters or dry-wall hangers, judging from the spatters on their clothes. The younger of the two, a muscular guy with a shaved head, was angry. He was telling the older one about a meeting that he attended.
I did not mean to eavesdrop, but it was hard to miss their conversation due to its volume. It sounded like he was talking about something that occurred during a school board meeting.
It is against our constitutional freedoms! He said, thumping the table with his finger for emphasis.
I am not going to let them make Bobby wear a f**king mask! He added.
I wondered if he would let them force his boy to wear a helmet while playing football. Or if little Bobby wore a seatbelt when riding in the truck. But I held my tongue, preferring instead to write about it here.
Why is asking people to use a mask so divisive? I would like to know.
Covid is an airborne virus, and we all know that masks can slow or stop the spread of airborne viruses. Surgeons do not wear masks because they seek anonymity. They wear them so that they do not infect their patients. Wearing a mask and getting vaccinated helps us to protect not only ourselves but each other too. It is the responsible thing to do.
It is not a freedom issue either. That is a bunch of crap. We all agree that we have the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. But we do not have the right to shoot up the neighborhood and kill the little kid next door.
So what is the problem?
Populist-style politics are the problem.
In the past, we liked to think that our leaders were people of sound judgment and strong mind. We thought they had studied history and law and knew how to use that knowledge to craft solutions. We may have been wrong to think that, but it was a comforting sentiment that everyone could believe.
But that is not the case these days. Today’s populist politicians are clueless and proud of it. They mouth the words written by their handlers. And they never read more than what is on the teleprompter.
The world is a scary place. It is full of problems.
But the populists have no solutions. All they can do is divide us and spread more hate. They resort to pointing fingers and blaming others. Like magicians, they misdirect with crazy conspiracy patter. They work the crowd till their followers are ready to believe and do anything. Then they tell their fans to mistrust vaccines, refuse masks, and overthrow a lawful election. Populism is not new. Finger-pointing has been going on forever.
It is just that it has become the norm now.
Hitler blamed the Jews. Trump blames everyone else. I think of another populist, Karl Marx, who wrote: History repeats itself. The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
But Hitler knew how to control his base. He knew how to bring the crowd to a boil, then cut the heat and keep them simmering on low. He kept them from going rogue. I am not sure if these new politicians know how to do that. They know how to light the match and fan the flames alright. But they do not know when to reach for the extinguisher. A crowd booed Trump at a rally recently when he tried to praise vaccines. Other politicians try to do the same and get ridiculed too. There is a grease fire in the kitchen. And it is growing out of control.
I have had enough.
Lunch is now over, and I need to get back to work. The salad and gyro were excellent. The service and the tab were more than fair.
And I do not think the food was the reason for the empty tables.
