My December to Remember: Day 18
I found out some very interesting news that my company is required to do in the face of Mayor Buttface’s New York City vaccine mandates. I will not share it here, as I am reporting independent of my employer. I have never been a representative of my company, even after all my time on YouTube and the internet. I work alone here and have never pretended otherwise. So I will say, based on the report I received, an outsider may think what was being asked of me as cruel and unusual. Or that I’m getting exactly what I deserve. Either one works in when you’re talking to Manhattanites.
A lesser man would have ranted and raved the moment he heard of such injustice. But when a lady’s executive producer calls her on a Saturday morning to let her know he’ll take care of it, you do not take it out on him.
Since this order came down on a Monday morning during MSNBC’s Morning Joe, it hasn’t been far off my mind. I was working at the time and ended up breaking down in the control room the moment I heard the news. It was delivered in such a callous, detached way, I was just done listening to all of it. The noise that was banging in my ear was something I had not consented to hearing. It was just vax this, vax that, mandate, mandate wear a mask over and over and over again. It was driving me nuts, so broke down I cried. A little longer than I needed to. I probably should have stepped out of the room. Oh well. No one batted an eye. I did something that the more you get to know me, it becomes kind of expected behavior. At least every now and then. Only a coupla times a week, I swear.
Either way, I sort of surprised myself today. When my EP called to discuss the latest on the mandate, he dropped a bomb on me that I hadn’t heard about yet. I had actually heard the opposite was going to happen. But I stopped. I didn’t panic. I just said, “Woah, hadn’t heard that one!” But he assured me he would take care of it, so he did. This mandate will not affect my ability to carry on with my job. We’re all good and squared away. But I saw myself in a position where I could so easily freak out, and I chose not to.
There was no reason to be mad at him, he was just the messenger. There wasn’t even reason to be mad at the company. They are just doing, in writing, what they need to do to be in compliance. In my free and fair utopia that exists only in my head, a business complex wouldn’t have to play by someone else’s rules. They’d make their own, beholden to no government municipality that was forcing an unjust law. Alas, that’s not the world I live in. So I understand why the corporate life has to write things down a certain way sometimes.
Still, I didn’t lose my cool. I pretended like everything was a-okay. When I got off the phone, I just laughed and laughed. It was all so absurd to me. Things are coming to such a ridiculous head, I just don’t know how they plan to keep up anymore. I think they’ve stepped over the line one too many times. Sure, plenty of people will choose to keep opening their mouths and allowing the state to enter over and over again. But not everyone. Not the majority. Even those on the left in a lefty city like New York have had enough.
“We think this will avert more people getting sick and that’s a good news story, and we really hope that everyone, you know, comes around and realizes this is a simple, very minor intrusion if you will, if it’s even that, all the children in the state have been wearing masks since the beginning. It’s not that big a deal.”
NY Gov. Kathy Hochul, December 18, 2021
It’s hard to know what people are thinking. It’s honestly a wonder to see such corruption at play. We are long into the endemic status of the virus, yet we are treating it like it’s March 2020 all over again. There needs to be a line drawn to when we can resume normal human life. But they want to wring out as much inhumanity as humanly possible. Just for a little bit longer. Because they’re losing their grip on us. They know it, we know it, the entire universe knows it. And we’ve been awake long enough to know we’ll never be the ones who’ll blink first.
New York has a lot of struggles ahead of it as cases reach an all-time high and more federal action will be taken to, I don’t know, completely remove this virus from the face of the earth? They don’t even know anymore. So I’m not going to let them do anything that flies past my moral code. I cannot again put a mask on in my apartment building, a place I’ve lived for nearly a decade, because this mandate includes anyone ages two and older. I cannot in good conscious comply with an order that does that to children. And I’m going to hold firm on that. I suspect everyone will hold firm on their positions over the next few weeks, and into the new year. We’ve got two weeks to make or break it.
Me? I’m lucky. I don’t have to step foot outside my door if I don’t want. I can get everything delivered to me. I can get someone to come pick my laundry up and bring it back later that day. I don’t have a single worry in my head. I can hunker down the next few weeks and wait this shitstorm out. Because a doozy is coming. I’m not sure many are even prepared for what we’re going to see. But I’ll be here if you need to talk about it. Because where am I going? Where could I possibly go in this climate?
I think The Powers that Be thought they’d’ve broken everybody’s spirits by now. Nope. Not me. Not anymore. I can keep my cool. I can push back in the face of empty, meaningless threats. Tell me it’s going to be a dark winter for people like me. Go on. Pretend like it’s everyone else’s problem. Pretend like all the protocols you’ve put into place have been a good thing. It’s mindboggling to me. But the stress about it is just not there. For I have recaptured my own little private liberty; one that lives within me where no one can get to. Not unless I’m ready to show them. I’ve got people on my side because I am on theirs.
We’re all gonna get through this. I’ve mandated a free mind for myself. For everyone else too, if you choose to follow it. After all, it’s a mandate. Not a law.