Return to normal? Thanks but no thanks

So, I know everyone is just jazzed as all get out that life is “returning to normal” after more than a year of pandemic restrictions but I must admit, I’m not one of them.

Don’t be getting’ all up in my space now just because Butte County is in the Orange Tier. Yeah, I’m vaccinated and get a kick out of flashing the “V sign” which once upon a time meant “victory,” then years later, “peace” and, now means “vaccinated.” But I still want y’all to stay away from me. Social distancing is a good thing. I think it should remain our modus operandi. It’s all about personal space and I don’t much want you in mine, Bucky. I didn’t BC19 (Before COVID-19), and I still don’t.

It’s puzzled me for years how people creep up on you when you’re standing in line. Like standing a foot behind me so I feel your hot breath on the back of my neck is going to get you served or in the door any faster. Really? I don’t think so.

And then there are always those “lovers” in a group. You know the ones I’m talkin’ about. They’re the people who, when introduced to you for the first time, swoop in for an all-too-intimate hug. I call these folks “presumptive huggers,” as in they simply presume that you’d want a hug from a total stranger or a loose acquaintance. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a hugger but a wellmannered hugger. That is to say, I hug only with permission. Try to throw your arms around me without permission and it could very well result in you finding yourself unexpectedly on your butt or wincing in pain from a hard poke to the ribs with a knitting needle. Not a threat. Just a warning.

Also, before restrictions started to ease up, spam calls had all but stopped and traffic was minimal.

For an entire blessed year I stopped getting calls from the “IRS” saying they were coming to take me away. The warning calls from the “FBI” that I was under investigation ceased. And Karen, “a social security and disability advisor calling on a recoded line,” stopped ringing me up three times a day to talk about my non- existent application. Liam also stopped calling to ask me to join a class action law suit against the makers of bladder mesh.

“You could qualify for compensation because you had bladder mesh surgery,” he would say.

To which I would reply, “No. No, I haven’t.”

“Are you sure?” He’d ask.

“Uh, yeah, I’m pretty darn sure that having bladder mesh surgery is not something I’d forget.” Click.

But no matter how many times I hung up on poor Liam he persisted until COVID hit then he went quiet. Now in the past week as more and more of the nation loosens COVID restrictions, it’s Henry who calls me about bladder mesh surgery. Liam now calls, several times a day, as a “representative of Amazon,” threatening to turn me over to the fraud division of the Federal Trade Commission if I don’t pay up the $1,200 I owe for purchases. I know it’s Liam because I recognize his voice before I hang up on him. Honestly, the guy’s gotta get a new career other than phone scammer.

And then there’s tier orange traffic. I guess I’d forgotten how busy Olive Highway and Oro Dam Boulevard can get but I’m tellin’ ya it’s like a traffic palooza out there. Seriously everybody and their brother (sister, aunt, nephew, uncle, niece, mom, grandfather, dad, grandmother and 15 cousins once removed) are out cruisin’ the highways and byways. Thing is, it’s been a year since many of them have driven, and they’ve all forgotten how. They’ve also forgotten the rules of the road. Come on folks, a stop sign is not a suggestion; a yield sign does not mean dart out into traffic quickly; and a crosswalk is not two parallel lines indicating where you should park. It’s sheer madness out there, I’m tellin’ ya.

Speaking of madness … with the gradual “return to normal,” what most Americans (sans, yours truly) have been crying for comes the resurgence of another uniquely American epidemic — mass shootings. As defined by the Gun Violence Archive, a gun violence incident is a mass shooting when four or more people, excluding the gunman, are shot, wounded or killed.

Since the beginning of 2021 the U.S. has seen 150 mass shootings that took the lives of 148 souls and wounded another 485 and we’re not even at the end of the month. Comparatively, in the first four months of 2020, there were 108 mass shootings that killed 129 people and left 409 injured

To put this “return to (horrifyingly) normal” into perspective: Forty-five of this year’s mass shootings occurred in just one month, from March 16 through April 16.

If getting crept up on and hugged all willy nilly, the return of spam calls and crazy traffic aren’t good enough reasons to return to lock down, then maybe, just maybe, the return of the mass shooting epidemic is a good enough reason. Just a thought for serious consideration.