No Shirt, No Shoes, No Mask, No Service

 I still have my sign up requiring a mask over your mouth and nose before entering the office. There are still those among us who have not received the vaccine and those who have no plans to ever get the vaccine.

One young man claimed that three people he was close friends with had actually died from the vaccine. "What are the odds of that?" I asked him. He seemed to not know that I was doubting his testimony and went on to tell me of the many people in his family that had become severely ill after their vaccines. Things seem to be escalating and I was afraid he was going to add more deaths to be attributed to the experimental vaccine developed to harm us all, so I handed him a pen and a legal pad and asked that he write the names of his dead friends down because I was so disturbed about it and wanted to read the obits and offer my condolences. His memory seemed to fail him and the names were not forthcoming. Imagine that.

To all those people I like to present the question, "Remember when you had smallpox?" They will look at me with a blank stare and I will say, "Oh, yeah, you didn't, maybe you never heard of smallpox because my generation was vaccinated and the disease was wiped out. You're welcome." Do they think that vaccine was not experimental? That maybe it was developed long before the disease came along? That vaccine was a live virus, by the way. I was a child, but I remember getting it. Talk about a sore arm! They pricked the skin about a dozen times, then applied the vaccine. It had to form blisters and a big scab before it was deemed successful. It hurt! You had best hope for  nice big scab, because if you didn't have one in the required number of days, you would be told it didn't "take" and you would have to endure the process all over again.

Schools required that your immunizations had to be up to date or you could not attend school without a valid doctor's excuse stating the reason why. Vaccines have come a long way since then. People take flu shots with nary a blink of the eye. It will not prevent you from getting the flu, but if you do, it lessens the severity of it and you are less likely to die. Same as any vaccine. Now that we have all learned how to wash our hands there have been fewer cases of the common cold.

Your reward for getting your vaccine is that you can come in my place of business with a naked face. Just last weekend I met a man with a mask on. I had to tell him twice to pull it up over his nose and he decided to share his beliefs with me. Very tall and rotund, this was a big man with a high voice like Gomer Pyle. I kept waiting to hear him say "shazam" and ask where Andy and Barney were.

It would have been nice had he said that. He informed me that The Father had told him not to get the vaccine. Also, The Father told him to go to Kentucky and he was headed that way. He assured me that The Father had told him that Donald Trump was the Chosen One. The Father told him that we should not listen to the words that come out of Donald Trump's mouth ( I can agree with this!). We are to see all of Donald Trump's good deeds. So far I was just listening, but this had me wondering what good deeds he might be referring to, so I asked. Oddly enough, he could not name one. I couldn't either, unless tax evasion is one. I kept my thoughts to myself as we completed the check-in process and he recited more commands from The Father. One of those was to not read the New Testament, only the Old Testament and this would help understand The Father's plan for Trump.

I am beginning to feel like I might be a magnate for all the weird people in this world. The man was later seen ripping his entire awning from his motor home before placing it in the dumpster, sticking up like a flagpole. I wondered if he had been given orders from above to so. We had to remove it, as I don't want to pay extra to have it hauled away. I plan to remove the fabric and use it on the ground under rocks and mulch to prevent vegetation growing through. The Father has gifted me with a crafty mind, I suppose.