A school to teach Covid-19 rules
By Robert LaFrance
People are saying that spring is on the way. I am not one of those deluded fools who say this. I’m a deluded fool who says we will get out of this pandemic before fall.
There are a lot of deluded fools like me, and possibly you - if you are a resident of the planet Earth. There are people who think the Earth is flat and those who think Covid-19 is a hoax, thanks to a bloated orange demagogue now residing in Florida.
Treasure hunters are deluded. I read about a team of them who found about $3 million worth of pirate gold and then had to give it all up to the government of Peru. Or was it the government of Tilley?
I had a cousin – no, I HAVE a cousin since he’s still kicking – who thought that Turkish government jail cells couldn’t be that bad, but they are.
Last week my neighbour the Perfessor and I happened to meet at the bottle redemption centre last week and enjoyed a 2-metre separated conversation. The thing is, neither of us was there to get money from empty bottles because I give all my empties to the food bank and so does he. He was there for metaphysical reasons.
Driving along the street, he saw the big sign that read “REDEMPTION CENTRE” and thought he saw his chance to atone for various mistakes over the years. The man who ran the centre used words and phrases like: “crazier than a cut cat” and “nut job, probably from Tilley”. The Tilley part wasn’t an insult, but ‘nut job’ couldn’t be counted as a compliment.
I mentioned the concept of 2-metre distancing and earlier I mentioned Covid-19; the government has its hands full there, partly because of the weird array of conflicting information we are hearing every day. In my 72.7 years I haven’t seen anything like it except from a girl I used to know in Orillia, Ontario. I never knew where I was with here, probably because I never got anywhere.
But that’s another story for another day.
Referring to Covid-19 rules, I notice that many signs in many stores and establishments have signs that ask customers to maintain a “6-foot” social distance, and other signs order a “2-metre” distance. They’re not the same thing. A metre is 39.37 inches, and a yard is 36 inches. Whosoever keeps a distance of only two yards (6 feet) from the person to whom he is speaking is too close, according to government rules. Six and two-thirds inches too close.
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The point I am slowly getting to is that the whole gamut of Covid-19 rules and restrictions are…I’m going to use the word confusing.
On Saturday, January 30, New Brunswickers were introduced to the concept of a 10-person bubble, which sounded to me a lot like: “Well, we can’t persuade you to follow all the rules, so we’ll just loosen them until you’re comfortable.” There followed a long list of revisions to the rules of orange zones (which we are in as of today).
Even the phrase “10-person bubble” is baffling. Whereas on Friday anyone who skated or jogged within two metres (NOT six feet) of another human being would be shot on the spot and fined $800, now we can attend an orgy as long as no one has a birthday in a month whose name contains an ‘s’, and there are ten or fewer at the orgy.
Last week if two persons who lived in separate residences were in the same car, they would both be summarily shot, but now there’s no problem. What changed? We’re still in orange zone. It’s all a mystery to me, as well as to my neighbour Claxton Fenety. I know this because Thursday he had said to me: “Hey it’s all a mystery to me.”
It is said that the pandemic has resulted in a lot of depression and other mental problems, leading to more enthusiastic drinking and partaking of ‘nose candy’ as well as legal drugs, but I can’t agree.
Oh, wait, I do agree. I had forgotten those two tractor-trailers that backed into my driveway yesterday morning. The same thing happened a day later at Claxton’s place, leading me to believe that perhaps we may be on the verge of dependency. Well, why not? As long as no one drinks and drives, especially those truck drivers.
I should quickly insert a sentence here to say that the foregoing was all lies. The only thing I know about the price of liquor and beer is what it used to be, back in the days when I used to over-indulge.
I am so much out of the loop (as they say) that I don’t even know where the regular spots are that people can return their empties, other than the food bank where I take mine twice a year. (Four beer cans, found in a ditch; it’s embarrassing.)
On Sunday morning I was driving by a place that boasted a big sign that read Redemption Centre (as I mentioned above) and I screeched to a halt, assisted by a slippy (as my cousin says) road. I almost went into the ditch where I might have needed serious redemption, but stopped in time so I could warn the Perfessor.
The little establishment was indeed a redemption centre but the proprietor, a wizened man of about 99, soon explained to the Perfessor that he saved bottles and cans, not souls.
After all my complaining, I just turned on the radio in time to hear a government announcement. The 10-person bubble is still in place, but the government has decided that the main problem is that people just don’t understand it. No kidding. Therefore the province will be setting up a school in Miramichi “because of its central location”. A 2-week course and Bob’s Your Uncle. -end-
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