Shopping used to be fun. I enjoyed the weekly shopping trip. Now, not so much.
Over the last 5 weeks I’ve watched things slowly deteriorate and I am now reminded weekly of people’s stupidity. Now it’s eggs. EGGS??!!! What, have the chickens all died? Are they no longer laying?? WHY ARE THERE NO EGGS????
I feel like we’re in some kind of weird social experiment. “How can we control them this week?” asks the faceless puppet master pulling the strings.
I bought some deli. The assistant said “Please stand back from the counter on the green dot.” What green dot? Oh that one, coz like I look at the floor and NOT in the cabinet when I’m at the deli. Thing was I’m now 2.5m from her. “Are you going to just toss it to me?” Joviality… but it wasn’t funny.
Get to the checkout. There are now big perspex guards over the checkout – sneeze guards if you will. And now we have to pack our own bags “for the safety of you and our staff”. Riddle me this Batman: I put the stuff on the conveyor belt, the checkout chick handles said stuff and HANDS IT over to my husband who is dutifully packing the bags. Say what now? So she can’t put the stuff she has just taken from me into the bags? Somehow handing it to my husband to do it himself after I’ve touched it and then she’s touched it, is going to protect her? And us? Can anyone else see the absolute STUPIDITY AND FUTILITY of this particular scenario??
It’s depressing.
I’m usually a pretty go with the flow kinda gal but I have to say this shit is really starting to bite. Never in my life did I ever for one second think that I would be living my life in the pages of an Orwellian dystopia. But here we are. With faceless voiceovers in the supermarket telling us to “keep 1.5m distance from other shoppers” and “Staff, it’s time to wash your hands”. How much longer before we hear “It’s time for your daily exercise Winston”.
For those unsure of, or too young to understand the reference, ‘1984‘ was a book written by George Orwell; a political statement wherein the central character struggles against Big Brother in an attempt to retain the one thing he thinks he still has control over: his own thoughts. But he stands alone. The majority of the population don’t feel the need to think freely.
“His fellow intellectuals have sold their inalienable right to think freely for security and a semblance of physical well-being.”
Edmond van Den Bossche – The New York Times
Sound familiar?
What the actual FECK!!! And for what? 34 deaths. We have turned our lives LITERALLY UPSIDE DOWN in this country and potentially shoved ourselves into a recession for 34 deaths. Not to mention a handful of items cost us $260!!!
How many people die of the flu each year? How many in aged care facilities during gastro outbreaks? No hue and cry. No nationwide lockdown. No drones checking on people; no shutting down of public spaces and sending businesses to the wall; no sacking staff by the thousands (millions?); no GPS tracking-enabled ankle bracelets for breaking the “rules”.
Whilst globally we have had 64,784 deaths (as at the time of publication). and I am in no way invalidating those, we’ve also had 247,000+ recover so far – with over 1.2 million confirmed global cases.
WHAT IS HAPPENING??
And yet we keep away, we avoid eye contact, we avoid ANY contact. Humans aren’t built that way. I really hope this doesn’t last much longer because if it does I’m not 100% sure how – or if – we’ll fully recover from the damage that is daily being done….
Further Reading: The message for today in Orwell’s ‘1984’