Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Quote of the Day: Meeting a Coronavirus Lunatic
“It is my experience that if we make the effort to listen to people when we meet them … it is then easy to find something to like in practically everyone.” — Bryant H. McGill
Oh stuff it, McGill. Your starry-eyed philosophy would have thrown up its hands in despair if it ever came across a guy I met the other day.
A totally non-gratuitous photo of Bob for this post.
Before we meet that guy, I need to say a few words about Bob, who has turned Marie and me into scofflaws. You see, we often take off Bob’s leash in parks that are posted with those darn signs that read, “Leash Your Dog.” Bob enjoys his leashless romps so much that we just can’t deny the pooch his little pleasures.
But we only do this when we’re on paths that are wide and sparsely frequented. Sometimes Bob meets other off-leash dogs, like the one you see above. Bob takes no guff off the big dogs. I don’t either, as you will discover later in this post.
Bob is a mild-mannered dog who trots along next to us and rarely even looks up at someone coming toward us on the other side. Most people smile when they see Bob.
The hulking, bearded, bemasked guy who met us on the path two days ago didn’t. In fact, when he got within 15 or so feet from Bob, he stopped, backed up in horror, and shouted, “Get that [expletive] dog away from me. Don’t you know that dogs spread the coronavirus!?”
“It’s highly unlikely,” I replied, “Even if he had the virus, which in animals is extremely rare, he would still have to get close enough to lick your nose.” The hulking guy sulked. He was apparently not in the mood to engage in a little banter concerning dog to human transmission of the coronavirus.
But he wasn’t finished yet: “And get that [expletive] dog on a leash. Don’t you know the [expletive] leash laws?” The guy was full of rhetorical questions.
I was a bit taken aback, so I asked Marie to leash up Bob.
I was about ten feet from the guy when I took a step toward him to say something to placate the guy, but I didn’t get a chance. The bearded one backed off like I was an active carrier of the Black Death and screamed, “Get away from me, you old piece of [expletive]!” He apparently thought that terribly clever so he repeated it, “Get away from me, you old piece of [expletive].”
That was a milestone of sorts. I’m 82 years old and that was the first time in my life that someone had called me an old piece of [expletive]. One likes to keep track of these things.
He got the “old” part right, but I think his addition of the phrase, “piece of [expletive],” was a bit overwrought and gratuitous, don’t you?
The scene was so ridiculous that I started to laugh. “Old piece of [expletive] — ha, ha, ha, that’s a good one,” I said, my laughter dripping with sarcasm.
Marie, like my mom and my first sergeant before her, warned me that my wiseacre nature was going to get me into trouble someday. I‘ve never listened to any of them, but this guy might be the trouble that they’ve been predicting.
I’m pretty sure the bearded one would like to have attacked me, but he had already shown he was afraid to get near me and my toxic swarm of coronacooties. That is, the guy’s own paranoia protected me. I wasn’t sorry to see the guy continue on his way down the path.
Here’s what Marie and I talked about as we continued our walk:
- Is the daily drumbeat of virus news for the past three months—worldwide deaths, ten different versions of how you can catch the virus, the danger of comorbidities, and so forth — driving some people over the edge, people whose personalities may already have been susceptible to fear and hysteria? The guy I met in the park is not the only one I’ve seen with unreasoning reactions to the virus. Even in the open air, some walkers detour so far around Marie, Bob, and me that it’s like we have coronavirus bugs that are poised to leap 20 feet and then take a 90-degree turn up their noses.
- Why are so many people wearing masks in the open air? Have they not heard that catching the virus while they’re outside walking in parks and neighborhoods is nigh impossible? I even see people driving their cars alone wearing masks.
- I’ve had a few of these tense encounters over the last few years involving Bob, and I just can’t resist responding like a smartass when some jerk tells me, in that arrogant tone that bullies use, that I need to do what he tells me to do. It just gets my hackles up. I usually laugh in their faces. I may have abandoned my common sense in my old age. Nah, that’s not it. I was born this way. Marie tells me that I’m going to get beat up someday. She’s probably right. I really need to stop setting these guys off. It’s about as smart as taunting a belligerent drunk.
- By the way, have you come across any overreaction similar to the ones I’ve described?
Good for you, Kent! I wouldn’t worry about someone trying to take you down. Being old pieces of s**t like we are, they wouldn’t dare. Ha!
I would make a substantial wager on the guy’s political party. I suppose there’s no way to verify it, unless res ipse loquitur is acceptable.
Item 4 -oh yes indeed. And in the park with wide trails. SomeOne turned around after I passed them running and caught up to me and told me I should have on a mask. I’m not a fast runner but they had to make some effort to do it.
My favorite running space has put dogs on leash signs up now, even in the wide open hill and dale space that was leash free. (Everyone still respects the public area with swings and equipment and grills and picnic tables and keeps dogs on leash and under control.) But most people seem to ignore the new signs, but there have been snorts and evil-eye looks as we go by, me with open face trailing the much more athletic Ridiculous Vizsla.
I have not, but then I don’t have a dog to walk to get me out and interacting with people. My wife takes evening walks in the neighborhood and has found that pretty much nobody is social distancing.
This is the Quote of the Day. If you have a quotation you would like to share, our sign-up sheet awaits with open days as soon as this Sunday. It’s the easiest way to start a conversation on Ricochet, since you can borrow someone else’s wisdom or use it as a starting point to argue against.
Aren’t these people great at ruining a lovely and benign walk in the park. I’m afraid that I have encountered several of these deranged people in my daily walks. Alas, I have no Bob at my side, but the number of people who think that they will catch coronacooties (which will henceforth be my preferred term) from a 2 second walk-by is astounding. Even if I put my mask on, they still swerve like I am the mask of the Red Death. I am wondering whether there has been an increase in traffic fatalities as these silly individuals swerve into the street. I never wear my mask outside, but have taken to wearing it around my neck so that if I pass nervous people I put it on to be polite, even as I sneer a little under it. I know several individuals who are normally rational human beings who are over the top in their fear of coronavirus, so I do think it is getting to people. Granted, the worst are taking care of high risk individuals, so I try to cut them some slack. But I have never in my life been verbally assaulted by strangers that are not schizophrenic they way I have been during this pandemic. (I am wondering if this gentleman had some mental issues). I confess in the beginning I answered them in kind. Now I’ve decided that I don’t need to add to the public tension, so I don’t respond.
Virtually every day on my Nextdoor League City West listserver. It is why I now avoid Wuhan Flu threads there.
Thanks for the full frontal Bob pic. Looks like he told that Great Dane to take a hike.
Thankfully, have not gotten screamed at or called names for being maskless outside. Sorry to hear of your nasty encounter. It amazes me the level of fear rampant in people I know who I had considered to be pretty laid-back about most everything.
Plague doctor (bird beak) masks are running between $13 and $35. Were I out and about more, one of those would tempt me.
I’m a hiker. I love to get out into the beautiful forests of Pacific Northwest, and try to go once a week. Besides being good exercise, it is an opportunity to get away fro the cares of the world. Lately, however, the serenity is frequently shattered by the boobs I meet who hurriedly mask up and scramble as far off the trail as they can get. I refuse to even carry a mask when I’m out in the woods. I’ve not had any confrontations, but this idiocy jerks me back to reality and spoils the moment. And who wants this spoiled?
What strikes me above all is the language the creep used. You’re lucky in Marie; I would have threatened to wash his mouth out with hand sanitizer for using such language in the presence of a lady! Must have been a Millennial, I’m guessing, from the combo of beard and verbal filth. I’ll say it again, what a creep!! A bully, too.
There are also decent ways of approaching a scofflaw. Such as, for example “Perhaps you’re new here, or missed the signs, but there is a leash requirement in this park.” No foul language, no accusatory tone, no belligerence, but providing face-saving, benefit of the doubt decency to the person flouting the law. And, who knows, perhaps he (you) didn’t know there were such rules.
What a creep. What a jerk.
Yesterday I visited the botanical gardens in Scottsdale Arizona. Not many visitors, but they required all guests to wear masks while walking in their cactus garden. It was over 100 degrees. Stupid
Too bad you couldnt give him the “Bilbo Face.” That would be cool.
Hoyacon, I think your suspicions are probably right.
EODmom, what a busybody!
Kent,
I had my experience at Publix very early on. I was putting my few items on the far end of the conveyor belt while this idiot was paying his bill standing past the cash register about two feet away from the cashier. I’d say I was about 10′ away, when this jackass starts up with “get back get back”. I said that I didn’t realize and backed up taking my items with me. He kept muttering something which I’m glad I couldn’t hear.
What kind of idiot says what this jerk said to you an older total stranger walking with his wife!? With all due respect, I’ve about had it with due respect. If I had been with you, I can’t guarantee, but without further ado, I think I would have punched the bastard in the nose. Whether this is a recommended course of action or not, this monkey deserved a really good punch in the snout. I’m really getting tired of these COVID hysterics on their psychotic power trip.
Regards,
Jim
Yes. Definitely.
It will eventually lead to some cases of psychosis but even now there are many cases of outsized obsession, especially because there are moralistic overtones to the issue: you are a good citizen and a good person if you obey faithfully all the social distancing and mask-wearing rules.
The precursor to this dramatic psychological reaction to the existence of the pandemic was the public hysteria over second-hand smoke. To this day, people are skittish if they even get a whiff of tobacco smoke.
I see that attitude very little in my personal life. When we meet friends for dinner we all hug (and extend the hug if we’re at a restaurant and people are looking). But, boy howdy, our Nextdoor app is full of people who want to execute you if you’re not wearing a mask. I see a lot of walkers in my subdivision and have never seen one wearing a mask. Of course it has been stupid hot here for weeks.
I have had a lot of medical, dental appointments lately and I have been taking a poll of my docs of how they feel about the hysteria. Most just roll their eyes. Just yesterday I saw a NP at urgent care and asked her the question. Same eye roll. So I pulled down my mask and she did the same and we laughed. Then we proceeded to have a nice conversation about the world in general and the US specifically. She is from Poland and expressed gratitude and happiness to be here.
No. Never. I wonder it that’s because I live in a red state. I walk in my neighborhood, rather than in a park. I’ve never seen anyone walking wearing a mask. I also walk on a treadmill occasionally in my local Y. We are required to wear masks entering and leaving, but not while exercising (although a few people do).
It had nothing to do with COVID but a few years back I had a run in with a 28 year old 6-4 ft , 250 pounder over my dog off leach. His were as well but he was angry that his two ran away from him. He called me every name in the book and threatened me physically. I laughingly told him I’ve had my butt kicked before and it wasn’t as easy as the kicker thought it would be. In fact you could hardly tell the kicker from the kicked. He was infuriated that I laughed at him. He went home and got his truck and later tried to run me over. I laughed some more and went home and called the police. They placed a RO against him.
My Irish grandfather knocked a guy out cold when he was 80. They took the guy away in an ambulance. Pop was shoving snow and the guy had a couple to many and told Pop he was to old to shovel snow and forcibly tried to take the shovel away. It didn’t hurt that the guy had dated my Aunt and Pop never liked him. The guy never pressed charges. How could he explain how he got knocked out by an eighty year old man. Pop lived another 17 years. Ironically he died from the flu.
Threads like this make me count my blessings:
I guess I should check the next time I get my hair cut if I am being “set up”, though.
I haven’t run into anyone like that, but a couple weeks ago I saw a guy wearing a mask while riding his bicycle. It was on a semi-busy street in our town but still, that seemed extreme. It might be interesting to know what he thinks masks actually do, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to find out.
Crimenutely, what a loathsome pill.
Out here where I live (no Biden/Harris signs in sight, huge TRUMP! signs all over the place), I’ve only run into one nattering ninny, in the grocery store one day when I was going the wrong way up (down?) an aisle whose floor had only just been marked with directional signs. “You’re going the wrong way!” she screamed. I told her I was part of a BLM protest, and part of our strategy was to go the wrong way up (down?) grocery store aisles. She stomped off. I continued shopping.
I suggest you pray for this guy. (I know that might not be your reflexive response.) But consider it in the terms that my stepdaughter put the matter to me a few days ago. We’re both believers in prayer, and that we should “love our enemies and bless them that curse us, do good to them that hate us, and pray for them which despitefully use us, and persecute us.” (h/t KJV).
But in the course of a conversation about a bunch of people who are irrelevant here, she said this:
It’s not exactly Christian forgiveness in the strictest sense, but sometimes, something like that is the best we can do.
This post caught me on a day I’m feeling grouchy. :-)
No one has taken this virus more seriously than I have. I have been reading about it steadily since last November. My doing so is partly related to the fact that my daughter and her husband are living in Manhattan at the moment. :-)
The gravest objection the Brits had to Hitler was that he spread fear and hysteria. Doing that goes against everything the Brits believe in. Their response to Hitler was C. S. Lewis’s World War II radio addresses, since compiled into Mere Christianity. In the olden days, calming people was considered chivalrous and gallant. Today it has become acceptable to cause panic and anxiety.
I’m used to seeing the politicians and reporters stirring up emotions in the Communist countries but not in the United States. It has been deeply disturbing to me to see people spread fear as a way to feather their own nest with money and power. Their doing so has caused great harm.
There is a restaurant on Cape Cod called The Woodshed. The owner allowed 150 people to gather in the outdoor tent he set up to comply with the virus regulations in the town. The town’s board of health summarily and suddenly shut the restaurant down for this offense. There was no friendly attempt by the town to say, “Hey, this isn’t wise. Let’s not do this again, okay?” The town board of heath simply closed the restaurant.
My husband and I are livid over this. How many people were hurt? The restaurant owner and his family, the loss to people who depend on the town’s services supplied by the tax dollars that will no longer be generated by this restaurant, the restaurant’s employees and their families, and on and on. This is a tragedy that didn’t need to happen. And it will cause the business community to live in even more fear. What happened to assuming good faith and giving people the benefit of the doubt? Have these old values disappeared now?
The local bureaucrats are getting away with this because the public is being scared by the reporters and politicians. It is not right that people (the press and the politicians) are profiting off of others’ suffering.
You know, She, I‘m not a believer, but I am a believer in the power of prayer. At the least, prayer has a salutary effect on the person doing the praying. I don’t have anyone to pray to, so I just send my words outward. I usually pray for forgiveness for a few episodes in my life that I’m a bit guilty for. I also pray for my children and wife.
I have no doubt that prayer is more powerful among Christians.
I wish I lived in an area of Trump signs. It’s hard for me to imagine. I live just outside of Portland. In my neighborhood there are five or six BLM signs. There are no Trump sings. I think the BLM signs are nothing more than virtue-signaling. I don’t really think they know what BLM is all about. So what the signs are really saying is “I’m stupid.”
I’m always going up those grocery store aisles the wrong way.
Beard-Man’s anger is going to eat him alive.
Poindexter, I think you’re right.
🤣🤣🤣
Totally agree. It makes one wonder what kind of people raised him to be so rude.
Believe it or not, here in blue Seattle, even bicycle riders are wearing masks.
Should your dog have been on a leash?