Relegating it to the dustbin of history…
3 minute read
April 19, 2025, 9:25 PM
So at this point, the pandemic has been over for about three years. People largely don’t wear masks anymore, social distancing is gone, those ridiculous plexiglass shields have mostly gone away, people congregate and enjoy life in large groups again, and life has largely returned to normal, as people have learned to coexist in the world with COVID-19 rather than panic at the thought of it. Make no mistake: getting COVID sucks, as I’ve experienced twice now. But it’s not something to flip out over. If you get it, you treat it, and then you move on. For me, the pandemic officially ended when Biden’s federal mask mandate for transportation was struck down by the courts. Up until then, that was the main impediment to full normalcy in my life, so with that gone, life pretty much fell back to normal for me. That is, except in healthcare settings, where it stayed weird for about another year before normalizing. I admit that one of the reasons why I refused transport to the emergency room after my accident in 2022 was because I was in no mood to deal with masks, and didn’t want to have that confrontation, especially after the way I responded to that EMT with the blood pressure reading. Even more so after we all learned that those stupid cloth masks that everyone was wearing were as effective as wearing nothing at all, i.e. we were all effectively going maskless the entire time, and we made it through just fine. That should give anyone pause about all of the various measures that were taken during that period.
Meanwhile, I’m glad that people have so successfully moved on from it. Some people worry that we’ll forget about the pandemic, but I am quite happy to help relegate it to the memory hole. Trying to forget that all of the nonsense that we were subjected to never happened is the only way for me to not continue to feel resentment for what our elected leaders, some of whom are still in office, did to us during that period. Though make no mistake, I absolutely have withheld a vote for someone for whom I otherwise would have voted as punishment over their overzealous handling of things during that period. But otherwise, letting it go into the memory hole is beneficial for moving on. And for as much of a pain in the ass that the whole two years was, I guarantee you that it ultimately winds up in the “dustbin of history”, i.e. history will have very little to say about it in the grander scheme of things, much in the same way that you never learned about the 1918 pandemic in history class.
Similarly, removing the remaining relics of the period is very healing for me. I love finding an old COVID-era sign and pulling it down. The assumption is that whatever the sign was discussing, whether it was social distance, masks, or any other special procedure, is no longer being followed, and no one bothered to remove it yet. And as such, I am more than happy to assist in purging that sign. I don’t ask anyone. I just help myself. I describe it as “the world is healing” as these signs disappear one by one. I have no problem sticking a fingernail under something and peeling it off, or pulling a sign down and tearing it up. I’ve even gotten down on the floor and pulled up social distance markers in random places. It’s a great feeling to watch that crap die.
That said, you can probably appreciate the glee that I felt recently when I had to stop by a medical device supplier in order to exchange some equipment that was incorrectly sent to the house and pick up the correct equipment. Next to the door of this facility, there was a handwritten sign that said to leave your equipment outside and then talk to the people working there before bringing it in. I saw that sign before I unloaded the car, so I popped in and asked if I could bring the items inside. Not only did they say yes, but they also told me that the sign was a COVID-era relic that they hadn’t taken the time to remove. I was like, “Say no more!” and made quick work out of that sign. I neatly removed it from the window, and then I proceeded to rip it up into many small pieces. When I was done, I just said, “Where is your trash can?” The employee showed me, and everyone was all smiles in seeing that sign go. Clearly, they didn’t miss it, either.
It’s funny. Usually, I’m a big one on remembering events, and discussing things about them. But the 2020 pandemic is something that I genuinely wish that I could forget, just because it was a period of draconian rules being forced on everyone, and it really brought out the worst in a lot of people. Forgetting about it allows me to forgive and move on. Life is too short to hold a grudge over things like that.
However, if anyone tries to pull that crap again, rest assured that the pitchforks are coming out, because we’re not going through something like that again as long as I have anything to say about it.
Categories: COVID-19
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