Is anyone else tired of wearing a mask? I’m certainly not an expert on the subject, but those who are—including The Doc—assure me that my wearing them is important, so I comply. I wear my mask while attending classes and shopping. I wear one, but I am really sick and tired of it.
I should probably confess that this week’s blog is being cowritten by three of my grandkids, the children of What’s-His-Name. Between marathon bouts of the four of us playing Minecraft on the PlayStation, they have been plying me with questions and incredibly helpful suggestions.
“Grandpa Mark? Have you ever had a job?”
“No, I’m a retired government employee.”
“Grandpa Mark? Did you know that there are more fake flamingos in the world than real ones?”
The Covid policy at Enema U is equally rigorous. Students and faculty alike are required to wear masks at all times, and yet, if you look around any classroom, you will discover that although most people actually are wearing masks, about half of them have their masks below their noses, and most of the others have taken them off to drink their coffee. Other than muffling the voices of the instructors, I can’t see how masks in the classroom are accomplishing anything.
“Grandpa Mark, are you writing about masks?,” says the munchkin looking over my shoulder as I write.
“Yes.”
“You should tell them to wear their masks above their noses.”
“Yes. ‘Cause wearing a mask below your nose is about as effective as wearing a condom over your nuts.”
“What are nuts?”
“Ask your grandmother.”
Evidently, I don’t need to worry, as the head squirrels at Enema U have officially decided and have posted online, that you can’t catch Covid in a classroom. Really! They actually said that. The university has had hundreds of cases, but the official policy is that no one has yet transmitted the virus by contact in a classroom. This, of course, officially absolves the university from any legal responsibility for someone who actually catches the virus, and eliminates the burden of tracking the people potentially exposed in classrooms. It also begs the inevitable question: If we can’t catch the virus in a classroom, why are we still required to wear masks there?
“Grandpa Mark?”
“Yes.”
“When you write this blog, who reads it?”
“People all over the world read it, hate what I’ve written, and write me angry letters.”
“Then why do you write it?”
Recently, a student who sits next to me in an economics course and begs a daily copy of my notes, called me on the phone to tell me he had tested positive. While I was very grateful for the warning (and even more grateful that retesting eventually proved the first test was a false positive), I thought it odd that no one at the university ever warned me that I had been exposed to the virus. Of course, this was before I learned that the virus could not be transmitted from one person to another inside a classroom. Evidently, you can catch it from dirty toilet seats or something.
“Grandpa Mark? Is the A-word a bad word?”
“What A-word? Audit?”
“You know, the A-word. What you sit on.”
“There is nothing wrong with the word ‘ass’. Some of my favorite administrators are asses. What is obscene is saying such damn fool things as ‘A-word’.”
Have you noticed that the state seems to have stopped shutting down businesses where employees have contracted the virus? A year ago, the newspaper published a daily listing of businesses that were shuttered for weeks at a time. My local grocery store was shuttered twice within a space of two months. While there are just as many—and possibly more—Covid cases compared to a year ago, we no longer hear about stores being closed. Possibly, the state stopped doing this because the governor is in a tough reelection bid? Or maybe it is just as hard to catch Covid in a store as in a classroom?
“Grandpa Mark? When our Daddy was a little boy, did he tell lies?”
“Of course. Everybody tells lies, especially the people who say they don’t tell lies.”
“Who tells the most lies?”
“Politicians and preachers.”
“What about grandfathers?”
“Grandfathers always tell the truth. Give or take a lie or two.”
“What does that mean?”
“Ask your grandmother.”
Obviously, the university has the amazing ability to pick and choose exactly when and where Covid can be passed from one person to another. You are safe in a football stadium, but libraries are such death traps that they have to be shuttered for months at a time. Fraternity houses are safe, but everyone should avoid the campus post office. And for some reason, you have to wear a mask as you walk into a cafeteria, but you can safely take the mask off as soon as you sit down. It must be very confusing for the virus to have to remember where it can and cannot go.
“Grandpa Mark?”
“Yes.”
“When you are done writing, will you play Minecraft again?”
“As you wish.”
The mask un-policy will eventually fade away. While I am sure that writing the rules and regulations for wearing the damn fool things is profoundly pleasing to the administration of Enema U, eventually we will all have to stop wearing the things, if for no other reason than, at least occasionally, a student may actually want to accurately hear what his professor has to say.
You’ll have to excuse me, I have to go right now to learn how to use red stone to power the mine cart in Minecraft. I have good teachers.
