Thanksgiving is this weekend. So, naturally, the person who was out sick with COVID yesterday decided to come in today, because “she’s missed enough work”. She was out one day, and it’s not like she’s a particularly dedicated worker. She’s already on the verge of being fired for incompetence, which we now see also applies to her ability to demonstrate reason when it comes to infecting other people with her illness a few days before a holiday.

Naturally, she’s an anti-vaxxer whose reasoning for not getting the vaccine is poor at best, populated with likely fabrications at worst. Loves them convoy people and thinks Trudeau is a dictator as well. Clearly, the education system in Ontario has failed her. Heaven forbid she ever live in an actual dictatorship. Wouldn’t she be surprised then?

She claims to have tested negative for three days and that it’s just because she got in a cold pool on Saturday, but come on. First of all, she said the pool thing was Saturday night and told us Monday morning she’d had three days of clean tests – unless she started immediately testing as soon as she got out of the pool, (which why would you unless you were showing symptoms, which at that point wouldn’t be caused by the pool), that’s bullshit.

(Update: the boss says the pool thing was Friday, but another co-worker said he was sure she said Saturday as well. The boss doesn’t want to send her home because then she has to do the job, so the boss is defending her despite the obviously inconsiderate behaviour).

How many people do we all know at this point who had COVID and tested negative for days on end, despite being clearly ill and knowing without question it was COVID. My brother and his family were down for a week. It took one of them three days (testing twice a day) to get a positive and another six days of the same to get that positive test. My wife’s brother-in-law was sick with COVID for five full days before it came up positive. Those tests are beyond unreliable, mostly due to the fact that they aren’t designed to test for Omicron or the BA.2 variant.

But what happens? I told our office manager she shouldn’t be here. She just shrugged. My other coworker and I went and put on masks, which was literally the LEAST this person could have done herself, but nope. We’re all sitting with masks on. The one who is actually sick is not.

Why is this acceptable in this day and age? If you’re sick, and she clearly is, why the fuck is she allowed to be here? I’m two months removed from watching my mother-in-law die terribly from COVID, and it was HARSH. That is a hard death and one I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I don’t need to see any of my other family members suffer a similar fate because some inconsiderate jerk thinks it’s okay to spread a deadly disease.

I’m so tired of these convoy-loving, anti-science, anti-medicine, anti-intelligence, selfish pricks, thinking they’re so oppressed because they made a choice to completely disregard their own health and the safety and well-being of everyone around them. Saying that people helping others, trying to be good to others, is somehow fascism? That Trudeau is a dictator because what? He didn’t want people to die needlessly? Because a bunch of morons shut down trade routes and occupied our capitol and after what was WAY too long, he decided to clear them out, with what seemed to most of us rational people, was a surprisingly gentle touch, given the situation? It could have been way, way worse. Certainly, in another country, where there was an actual dictator, it would have been a response that was immediate and far more brutal.

On top of that, they’re still crowing on about mandates and masks and whatnot, most of which weren’t Trudeau’s doing (many of those decisions were provincial) and most of which were no longer in place at the time of the protest. There are next to none now. These don’t even know what or who they’re protesting. They’re just towing some demented party line amplified by social media propaganda bubbles and grifting right wing politicians. No wonder they seem like spoiled children. They’re throwing tantrums about not having cake when they’re literally standing the bakery.

I’m sick of it. We cannot continue to let this over-entitled, disconnected-from-reality subset of the culture distract us from things of real import – health care, climate change, the housing crisis, economic inequality.

Do better, people.

Target: 900 words
Written: 258 words, novella: The Mungk