Chapter 16: Kiddie Pools (6/16)

And the Patio Police Are Deployed

May 23, 2022

The Summer was heating up and that meant one thing: Kiddie Pools. (Well, in fact it doesn’t mean Kiddie Pools but rather, uh, “Fur Baby” pools).

But in South Boston, once it gets over 90 degrees everyone heads to the beach. So we were running out of beach chairs routinely. Of course, fear-porn news choppers were circling ahead, relaying back to the sad saps glued to their TV about how this to going to be a “super-spreader” event. In the hot sun. You know…

Where viruses die.

Someone has made a comment on their dirty money.

The induced panic became so real, and the call into authorities so heavy, that the city was obliged to send Boston cops onto the beach to maintain “social distancing.”

As if I needed another example of just how farcical the whole thing was.

At this point, some of the older single ladies have turned into what has become to be known as “Karens.” It’s not a term I generally like very much, but it sure did apply now. The based restaurant chain in Southie was absolutely committed to remaining open, and they had built massive patios that spilled out into the street (this was happening in the based, and Italian—and also Catholic—North End).

So these women would literally stand across the street and police the patios. I guess you could call them “Patio Police,” even.

They would watch as the younger crowd on the patio intermingled—making note if they got closer than 6 feet, and so forth. As was reported in the news, they would even call the cops.

It would all come down to social media equating to social control. As noted in the very beginning, people were being manipulated by what they saw on social media—considering shared videos to be fact and rumors, truth.

All they needed to do was to turn off their televisions, or their “feeds,” and conduct themselves as they might have done only a few months ago.

And now us employees had to mask up all the time. As a store, we had resisted the overwhelming pressure to be “masked up” at all public times. I say public because when no one was around, I would remove my mask. In fact, I had devised a way to lift it up and down via a rubber band-and-paperclip mechanism. It certainly drew the ire of people walking by our windows. People would see me on my own in the store, walking by, and the stares of derision were palpable.

I suppose on the interzone there were people complaining. No skin off my nose.

I just wanted to stop losing my hair.

In the meantime: Golf.

The PGA tour was restarting (!). As a sport, they were naturally “social distanced” (an oxymoron if ever there was) so they were allowed to compete providing there were no spectators (more anti-logical garbage).

BUT still they sported. We had a computer attached to the paint-mixing machine so we could watch it live and boy was it a thrill to see someone--anyone--bucking the trend to lock down forever. In fact, if there was one positive result of the “COVID Nineteen” social contagion it was that golf, like hardware stores, experienced a massive boom in popularity.

Even the players on TV were better. Without a crowd to distract them, middling players like Bryson DeChambaeu became champions in front of vacant courses. Some players, like Tiger Woods, for example, weren’t as good without crowds, but for the most part it golf was, far and away, the most interesting thing on TV.