May 21, 2021 – The seventeenth official Friday Night BeerBlog

I wrote a blog entry last May 8th, 2020 titled: Mask-Shaming – The Wave of the Future. It was right before the mask mandate went into effect and Cate and I had run into Kroger to grab something quickly. As we rushed through the self-checkout, a woman behind us decided to discuss our lack of mask wearing loud enough for us to hear. I knew in that moment that mask wearing was going to be a really big deal immediately.

Fast forward a year. Mask wearing has become the rule and not the exception. It is engrained into our daily rituals. There have been so many ups and downs the last 12 months with spikes and death from the virus, holidays spent without family, and the feeling that less than six feet is just “too close”. Something we are all familiar with doing is strategically placing masks everywhere and within reach. No one will forget all the cars with masks swaying from the rear view mirror. Or the vision of someone walking with one side of their mask dangling from one ear. Sexy.

Then the vaccine. Hallelujah!! Then the wait for our turn! And the scramble to get an appointment. We got the first stick, then the second, even with the rumors of negative side-effects. Normalcy was the goal. We had served our time. But hey, then they put all us vaxxed persons on house arrest and told us to keep wearing our masks. Apparently not enough people were getting it and surely we didn’t want to give it to them before they had their chance at the vaccine.

The weeks passed and the number of people getting vaccinated started to dwindle. Most of the people that wanted it had the chance to get it, but still had to wear their masks. Until…

Suddenly last Friday the CDC announced that if you had been successfully vaccinated that you were not required to wear a mask indoors or outdoors anymore. It was like, WHA!? But what about the VID? What about those that hadn’t been vaccinated yet? Sometime that afternoon I heard that Governor Beshear had said that YES, if you have been vaccinated that you were not required to wear a mask anymore, unless stated by a certain business, restaurant, store.

I happened to be going out to meet a couple of co-workers that night at a favorite watering hole. Mask yes or mask no? There was a new sign on the door stating if a guest was vaccinated they didn’t have to wear their mask inside. I was skeptical, so I wore it anyway the first time I entered from the front patio. The second time I didn’t wear it and felt guilty. It was WEIRD!

When I got home that night, I met Mike and Cate who had just returned from picking up dinner from Qdoba. Mike was HOT! He had jumped into Cate’s car and didn’t have a mask stashed there. When they got to the Q, all of the signs for wearing a mask had been taken off the doors. So he thought “Cool!” and walked in not expecting what greeted him. Two of the employees “loudly” informed him that unless he put a mask on, he would not be served.

Mike pointed out that there was no sign on the door and the manager told him to leave immediately. Cate had her mask and had to place her order, leave, and take the mask out to Mike for him to come in and order. If you know Mike, you can picture that he stated his case quite “clearly” to the manager given the sketchy and confusing information that had just come out that afternoon. What was most surprising was how disrespectful the employees of our home Qdoba were in that moment. The actual mandate was lifted and there was NO sign on the door.

We agreed that he was probably receiving the punishment for them having to force more than one person out the door that evening. But it doesn’t excuse them for not having a sign on the door. But, as usual, it’s another thing in a long line of things we’ve had to deal with during these Coronatimes. We’ll be taking a break from Qdoba for a while to let this situation air out.

There is so much confusion on the mask issue. Where do you have to wear a mask? Where don’t you have to? The rules are different for every place and business. I went to Target yesterday and wore a mask just because I didn’t know if I had to or not. It was 50-50 mask versus no mask. And it was strange to see people wandering around without them.

Do we just go on wearing masks just in case? I would hate to be confronted with the situation that Mike ran into. (At Qdoba – let me say it again) I’ve made it this far without getting yelled at. I would hate to start now. I think to just keep from being mask-shamed, I’m going to wear it for now. But to those people who haven’t gotten the vaccine for whatever reason, my message is this: I’m not going to wear my mask to keep you from getting sick for much longer. Just go get your damn vaccine.

We are so lucky to have the ability to start moving back to normal so quickly. A year ago we had NO IDEA what was to come. We were Covid stupid. I can’t wait till we can’t remember all of the rules we’ve had to follow this last year. I can’t wait till I’m standing shoulder to shoulder with some stranger at some concert or event, singing or cheering loudly in each other’s face. That will be a good day.

LLM

Side Note: I was very sad to hear of the death of a fellow female cyclist, Gwen Inglis, last weekend. Gwen regularly rode with her husband, Mike, out in Colorado. And was doing so this past Sunday morning at 10:30am when a motorist under the influence swerved into the bike lane. They hit her and nearly missed Mike. He did everything he could do to save her on site, but she later died at the hospital.

Not a ride goes by when I’m sitting on Mike’s wheel that I don’t envision something like this happening to us. My heart breaks for Mike and for the Colorado cycling community and for women cyclists everywhere. We lost a good one.

Peace.

Mike and I are talking about it here:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1594894/8566223