Why am I revisiting my review of a local gas station and giving them a top rating? Well…read more..
We're coming up on the 2nd wave of the Pandemic, and the experts are predicting it's gonna be a tidal wave. I survived the 1st wave without getting the virus, but I'm frankly nervous about the 2nd wave. If I go into a supermarket, or a restaurant (rarely now), or a store, or to work, people are wearing masks. Where aren't they wearing masks? Gas stations, believe it or not.
In May, I wrote a review of a Delta gas station in north Jersey that I've patronized over the years because of their low prices. In re-reading it, my attitude back then seemed to have been one of a slightly amused curiosity about the crochety proprietor and his lack of a mask-- I speculated that he probably considered the wearing of it a sort of "effete, Blue-State foppery." That was then. Now? I'm not so amused. I've stopped patronizing the place, low gas prices or not. If you're a gas station proprietor, and you're not wearing a mask, you're an a'hole.
I don't know when this nihilistic idiocy became a "political statement," but it's obviously in very large part thanks to our "Fearless Leader," the Orange Vampire, the Orangutan-In-Chief. You have blood on your hands, sir. Thanks. For nothing.
My nephew has the Covid (he's young, vigorous, and seems to be doing ok, thankfully). A co-worker/friend has it, and several more co-workers have been quarantined because of their close proximity to the co-worker/friend who has it. At work, I'm beginning to feel like Don Lope de Aguirre in the final scene from Werner Herzog's classic film "Aguirre, the Wrath of God," where he's alone (except for numerous chattering monkeys who emerge from the jungle and cluster around him) on a raft floating down the Amazon into oblivion, mercifully insane. Me? I'm not insane. Yet...(although...I dunno...some may beg to differ...)
There's a Delta in Stirling, bigger than this Valley Road one, with more gas pumps available, that I also used to patronize until...again...the guy pumping my gas leaned into my window without a mask. Or a Conoco on Rt. 22 in Branchburg, that has really low gas prices but mask-less employees manning the pumps. You know what? I'll spend a little extra money to increase my chances of not contracting a potentially deadly virus.
The Valley Road Delta is not the easiest location to navigate if it happens to be rush hour (it's right across the street from the VA Hospital), and it doesn't have the greatest number of pumps. But the attendants are reasonably civil, the prices are relatively cheap, and...most importantly, at this point...they wear masks. For their safety, as well as for the safety of their customers.
Recently, I talked on the phone with a high school friend who lives in Nevada. We've stayed in touch, even though he's a reactionary and we don't really have a lot in common. He's dealing with some major health issues-- he's a lifelong diabetic on a waiting list for a kidney transplant, his eyes are starting to fail, and his sex life has become non-existent. He deals with these issues with courage...I admire his balls, quite frankly; I don't see myself being quite as stoic if I had to face the same issues he does...and he's a smart guy, but in this last conversation he told me he had stopped patronizing a local store where they had told him he needed to wear a mask before he could enter. He said to me, defiantly, almost proudly, "I told them I'll take my business somewhere else. Somewhere where they appreciate my business, and respect my freedom as an American."
Is that stupidity? My friend is far from stupid. Is it a cult mentality? Nihilism? Better minds than mine will have to interpret that, because I can't. I give up. The morons are in ascendency, even when they're not morons.
I didn't, because my friend was in low spirits regarding his health issues, but I should have told him that that's an attitude that can work both ways. He'll stop patronizing businesses that require him to wear a mask because it impedes some hazy concept he has of "freedom." Me? I'm going to remember those businesses where the people running them respected me enough to show some concern for my safety and well-being.
And I'm going to remember those that didn't.
