If I Had a Nickel…

If I had a nickel for every time a blog idea has come to me lately when I’m either in the middle of something (like cooking and needing to stir) or driving or have no quick access to paper and pen to jot the idea down….. Well, since I’m only talking in nickels, I’d probably only have enough for a small cup of coffee at the local convenience store, but still… So I’m going to start writing about something that’s been on my mind lately and see where it takes me….

Can you believe it’s been a year now since we were “officially” told that our country was in a pandemic? Remember back in those initial days when we were all struggling to find out what was going on, and when fear made people hoard toilet paper(I still haven’t figured out why that item!) and we faced shortages? Remember when disposable cleaning wipes then became out-of-stock as well (that one makes sense to me). Remember when we were at 100% lockdown except for basic needs companies? Our local Dollar Tree was permitted to remain open because they have about 5 feet of OTC medicines on shelves in the entire store! Convenience stores that also sold gasoline were allowed to remain open and you can sure bet that people also bought milk, soda, prepared hot foods, snacks and cigarettes at the same time. I could still go to see my chiropractor because that was considered essential. I think, if we hadn’t been so afraid and panicked, that we might have found better ways to decide what were and were not essential businesses, or limit those who had some essential products to be allowed to sell only those. In the meantime, employees of essential businesses were expected to go to work every day and take chances with their health, but owners/operators of businesses who only have one customer in the building at a time were closed because their services were considered non-essential. Yet, we wanted those 25 or 30 or 50 or more employees in the grocery stores at the same time plus customers and that was less risky somehow?

And now, we have vaccines and even a simple mind like me understands that a vaccine isn’t a cure, doesn’t make you immune to the virus. I don’t even want to go into that rant!

And now the United States has had over 500,000 deaths as a result of this virus or complications from it. Based on the fact that the last count of people living in the US (2019) was over 328 million, some people consider that “sad” but in comparison to the number of residents living in the country, a relatively low number. I want to ask them this hypothetically: “If you had 328 million in investments and someone swindled you out of 500,000 of those investments, are you likely to think to yourself, ‘oh hey, that’s sad, but I still have plenty of money left so it’s no big deal?'” Yea, I think not!

And we have Trump and DeJoy to thank for what is still happening with the Postal Service because of removing and trashing sorting machines in order to delay mail-in votes (in case they were for Biden). I posted on another social media platform recently that 3 of my 4 recent Priority Mail boxes were not delivered in the time promised and which I paid for! I actually drove 15 minutes out of my way to ship something UPS, which cost me more than the USPS, because of this! I’m not so much angry about the delays, because I realize the USPS is doing the best it can, but if they can’t deliver in the promised time for which I paid, I think some sort of refund should be issued! And now there is talk about privatizing the Postal Service and taking it out of the hands of the executive branch of the federal government. Just think about – imagine – the rise of charges when it is corporation-run and the corporation wants, of course, to make a profit from owning it! We all complain each time the price of stamps rises by a few cents each – imagine the services you are currently receiving are cut in half and the prices for the services we do still offered are doubled. I believe that part of the reason the USPS is in the red is because we all have technology on our side to make getting a message to someone instantaneous! Send a text, send an email… Of course, in another 20 years’ time, no one will even know how to write or use a pen or pencil!

So here we are – a year into the pandemic and honestly, the only thing that’s greatly improved is that you can now once again buy toilet paper!!! The news on the horizon about these new variants of the virus doesn’t look promising for the near future and I’ve read reports that we need to be prepared to still be wearing masks into 2022. When the vaccines first came out, a lot of us were sure we could see the light at the end of the tunnel. I think we were all naive and that light we see is actually the headlight beam of an oncoming train…