Day 36 proved to be one of the more exciting quarantine days to date. It started out like a regular quarantine day, but then quickly morphed into something out of a sci-fi novel. If I read sci-fi and actually knew of a book, I would compare today to that book, but as I don't, I'll just leave that right there for you.
I woke up and decided today was not a day to wear pants. I decided to go with muscle shirt and pajama shorts, ankle socks and a pair of moccasins. You dress for success, after all. I went downstairs and made myself a jug of regular Joe coffee. No dark roast for me, as I'm not a homosexual. As I sat enjoying my 9th cup of coffee, I looked out the window and there I saw something that made me sick to my stomach - there were two people walking slightly less that 2 metres away from each other.
I grabbed my cellular device and speed-dialed the handy snitch line the provincial government had recently set up. I, as well as other Ontarioioians, make use of this wonderful resource many, many times a day. I call the snitch line so often that they not only know my voice, they know my name and PIN#.
The OPP was alerted and immediately sent their task force to bust this illegal ring of naughty non-social distancers. Through my high powered binoculars, I watched as the team came down my street in their Humvee's. They immediately picked up on the scofflaw in question and set upon him/her/it with the full intention of busting some non-compliant face. Kick face and ask questions later. It's the government way, because what you tolerate you get more of. Uh huh.
More tomorrow, I need to have a shower.
Good to see responsible citizens making use of the snitch line to get these irresponsible scofflaws in line. I feel better knowing there are people like you watching out their windows, amped up on caffeine.
ReplyDeleteAs a social conscience plumber working in the far north of the only 3 provinces that count, we've had our share of the flu phobic take root.
ReplyDeleteWe're constructing a new health building for old folks that need near constant monitoring so as to not check out too early, prior to having paid in full their full consideration of tax to the overseers.
The building is about 8 months past the promised completion date, and about 80% over budget. 8 major revisions will do that to a project, as will working for a plumbing contractor that incessantly says to every problem, "just get it done" in his mid-east accent. There's been about 100 plumbers on site, all fired or arrested at various points, and we're making do with a crëw of 10 now, whom mostly show up each day on time and sober enough to get through the day.
There are portapotties on site, those plastic milk jug like devices that construction types pee and poop and smoke in when the need arises.
Now I'm not saying they're an unclean type of worker, but it's rare that there's any toilet paper in these units, even the pink one for the 2 lesbians that work as laborers picking up discarded junk and sweeping the floors.
One day, shortly after the flu came to town, signs went up telling us to wash our hands after we go pee or poop or smoke in the portapotties, even though there wasn't any facilities to wash hands in, which I thought was odd.
After a few weeks passed, with only the rare soul paying mind to these signs, a new hand washing facility was built at the building entrance, with flowery smelling sope, and sope towels, and a water device that shot cold water at us if we actually tried to wash our hands after peeing, pooping, smoking, in the portapotties.
Once a week, the portapotties are washed and sometimes there's a roll of toilet paper put in for a day before some hoarder puts it in his backpack and takes it home as an offering to his wife. Only the locals have wives here, most of us are from Cowtown, where gasoline is now trading for $0.48 / litre. It hasn't been this cheap since 1988 when I drove a 1962 Chevy Biscayne.
After the workers power wash the portapotties, they remove the hand washing stations to the outside, and power wash them too. Sometimes, like 2 weeks past, the workers will simply come inside the Alberta Health Facility building for the near dead, and wipe the hand washing stations down with some disinfectant.
I watched the sanitation workers wipe down the hand washing stations, with another plumber type guy from Cowtown. The other plumber type guy started to yell at the sanitation worker, saying he was a pig, and unclean, and an imbecile (one of my favorite words) as he was washing the hand washing facility with his gloves on, the same poop encrusted gloves the sanitation worker used as he power washed the portapotties with.
There was potential pee and poop and even cigarette smoke on the very gloves being used to wash our hand washing facility so as to prevent Peking Pox or Chinese Lung Rot from infecting our clean families.
There was a discussion that went both ways, I hoped it would become a physical discussion, but it died down as my coworker ridiculed the cleaner man's penis size and girthiness.
Then the cleaning man left. The hand washing facilities possibly cleaned "good enough" for those people, cash in hand, and as clean as their ever going to be until a new cleaning company is tricked into doing this work.
Part 2...
ReplyDeleteSo, we've stopped washing our hands.
Some do out of habit after they pee and poop and smoke, some don't and nobody questions them about it.
Meanwhile the Chinese Lung Rot / Peking Pox marches on, taking out those that don't abide by modern cleaning standards.
One of our co-workers wore a face mask his wife knitted for him, to help keep the Peking Pox at bay, at his wife's insistence he washes it in a small load in the wash machine after use. He did this for 1 day, now he doesn't wear anything, doesn't wash his hands after peeing, pooping, smoking. His wife will never know. Canada has enough water to get through the storm, no need to conserve it.
We don't wash our hands anymore, we do what we want, we work as hard as we feel like working, and nobody cares.
We sit, 10 people with mostly unwashed hands, in 1 lunch room, at 3 tables, and poke fun at the federal gov't together except for one imbecile that once ran for the federal Green Party of Canada. We've had words in the past, the simmering of hatred continues and he knows I'll pounce at the smallest of weak signals.
The company will be out of work soon, the owner will probs be sued for conducting sub standard work with leaking pipes and maybe a month before I join the other 5 million newly unemployed Canadians collecting their $2k a month in "benefits" from the gov't. Sure we're netting $8-$9k per month, but $2k for never having to get out of pajamas is starting to look sweet.
I've saved some cash from these past few months, I'll buy a used foreign car with the money I've saved, further eroding the tax base in Canada. I don't care.
I leave the caring to the professionals, they care.
I don't care, though I have a hot shower after work to wash the guilt off.
I burst into tears at your heartfelt sharing of your story, comrade.
ReplyDeleteWashing hands is so overrated I did it a few times but gave up. What's the use?
ReplyDelete