So I went to Menards home improvement store Wednesday for a can of spray paint and a 4 foot piece of one inch black pipe.
The spray paint is for the cylinder so it won’t rust when I put it back on the backhoe (now that the cylinder is fixed) and the pipe is for a lever so I can get the mounting ears for the cylinder bent back into position with a torch and some leverage.
Now, I have gone to Menards during our time when only (ahem) “essential” businesses were open more or less weekly (I refuse to hide from this disease that is not much more contagious, virulent, nor deadly than many other “Pandemics” in my lifetime) and, until now, have never had any issues. I have walked it, bought my items, stayed 6 feet from other customers, and left. Unmasked. I sanitized my hands once in the car, and that was that.
Until as I say, Wednesday, when I attempted to enter the store only to be politely, but firmly told by the nice young (and new) security guard (who was a new addition to the store…they never had security before) that I had to wear a mask or I could not enter the store. He politely informed me that if I did not have a mask, I could buy one for $1 at the desk right there….
Now, I don’t get it. For 6 weeks, Menards has allowed people in the store, even for non-“essential” items during the “stay at home order suggestion….and never required a mask. Now that the order is lifted, they require a mask on their customers. Why now? WTF? Why not all those other 6 weeks? If it is for safety, either of their customers or their staff, then why did they not require masks for the previous 6 weeks? Or is it something else?
We won’t even discuss the so-called masks nor the failure in fitting or wearing….as long as one had something covering the lower half of their face, it was ok. Forget that fully half of the masks would not have protected either the wearer nor others around them. They were wearing a mask, so it was ok.
This is getting to be bullshit, The Social Conditioning is starting to worry me. Not only because my fellow citizens are going along (what happened to common sense and the American Spirit?) but because they are simply not bothering to think about the effectiveness of what they are being led told to do.
So far, I have only worn the "mandatory mask" once, this past Sunday while in line at a shoreline seafood restaurant. It was close quarters, and I took it off and placing my order and going back out in the open.
The only time so far anyone said anything to me was when I went into a local hardware store last Friday where my buddy's wife works. She was horrified I did not have a mask on, and I explained to her that you don't have to wear one for a medical condition. You also don't have to explain or prove such a condition (I keep a printed copy of the governor's executive order in my truck JIC). She still tried to give me one they have available at the store.
I told her (in front of the other employees and other patrons) my medical condition is an allergy to tyranny.
Went to the base today, 100% mandatory masking… sigh
Actually, masks do work to help reduce infection rates. Why do you think the medical types wear them?
However, there are two prerequisites for this to work. First, everyone has to wear them. Second, they must be worn correctly to be effective.
And there's the rub. Not everyone wears them–I don't, because I have a beard and given that, I'm just wasting the mask. Others don't for their own reasons. Of those that do, around half, in my experience, wear them incorrectly. I've seen every violation of mask protocol imaginable during my trips outside the wire.
My opinion is that, unless we all wear them and wear them correctly, we may actually be making things worse via a false sense of security. For now, I'm just going with avoiding people where possible and washing my hands. It's worked so far.