As a shallow person I don’t make a habit of telling other people what to do. Most of the time I mind my own business and let the chips fall where they may. But in case you haven’t noticed, these times are different than most. In many ways. I mean not so long ago we were all able to walk into a grocery store without waiting in line. Without putting on a mask. Without sanitizing our hands on the way in and on the way out. And I don’t know about you but I clearly remember sitting on the cafe patio, spending time chit chatting with friends while sipping a latte. At the same table. Or inviting them to my home and letting them inside when they discretely asked to use the “facilities”. At least I would if I had managed to clean before they arrived. But those times appear to be gone. At least for now. And for now, what seems to have taken the place of all that we knew, are rules. Rules that, for our own good, we need to follow.
Now none of us are strangers when it comes to rules. We grew up with them. Right from the get go. Most of us, at least most of us who are of a certain age, remember the plethora of rules we had to adhere to at school. No chewing gum in class. No running in the hall. No talking out of turn. Simple rules but ones we had no choice but to follow lest we find ourselves spending many an hour sitting under the watchful eye of a teacher who no more wanted to be in that room with us than we with them. Little did we realize that these rules were designed to assist us in becoming decent human beings. And now, as decent human beings we know there are rules we need to follow for the sake of others. That’s why we don’t drink and drive, no longer smoke in public and do our best to eat with our mouths closed, the latter being particularly important when sharing a meal with loved ones, as we so often did in the past. Some of us go so far as to adopt rules for our own good. We pay ourselves first, finish what we start and, of course, “do unto others as we would have them do unto us”. And we are better people for it.
Let’s face it though. Not all rules are the same. Some rules, like the ones we have to decipher when doing our taxes, are complicated. Break one of those rules and you’ll hear about it for sure but, if you’re lucky, someone will likely accept your mea culpa and let you go on your way. With a small penalty of course. Some rules have more serious consequences. Like when you decide to put the metal to the pedal on a long, lonely stretch of highway thinking there’s no one else going to wherever it is you’re going. And then you discover, much to your dismay, that you have a new friend in a black and white cruiser who has decided this a good time to get better acquainted. In this case you can say all the sorries you want but that cute little red number you love so much will be sitting in your new friend’s garage and you’ll be walking to work for the next little while. And some rules are ok to break every once in a while. I mean who didn’t sneak into the house hours after curfew, confident that the ‘rents, sleeping like logs, would be none the wiser? Trust me. They weren’t sleeping. They knew. But since you were home safe and sound, and they could now get some much deserved shut eye, they let you off the hook. Every once in a while.
Then there are some rules that are so simple, so easy to follow, that it’s hard to understand why anyone would decide to break them. And yet, they do. So now that things are opened up just a tad, me and my guy have taken to sitting outside at our local cafe (I’m quite sure I don’t have to tell you which one) for our afternoon coffee. Not everyday, but once in a while. Here’s the thing. Because we still exist within our “new normal” a few rules have been put in place at the cafe. Nothing onerous. Like this. There is now a door to go into the cafe and a door to come out. And they are not the same. One set of doors is around the corner from the other. To make matters simple, a sign has been posted on the now “exit only” door to clearly indicate that it is, in fact, the exit. To clarify, there’s an arrow pointing to the door you are supposed to use to enter the cafe. And in case you can’t tell where the arrow is pointing there are actual words that explain the entrance is around the corner. Off the patio. It’s not hard. Yet, as I watched with some dismay, two out of three people entered through the exit. Some read the sign and clearly decided to ignore the message. Some did not read the sign at all, I suppose thinking the message was not meant for them. While others read the sign, thought about it for a moment and for some unknown reason, made the determination that the rule did not apply to them. Perhaps the extra 30 feet was too far to go.
Okay. I get it. Old habits die hard. But this one, very simple rule has been put in place to keep everyone safe. You. Me. Your kids. The people who work at the cafe. You know. The ones who are forced to wear masks all day long so we can all continue to satisfy our habit. The woman who dutifully walked around to the new entrance each and every time she needed to enter the cafe only to end up face to face with someone who chose to enter through the exit. Without a mask. So while I hardly ever tell people what to do, and I never swear, I’ll say this just once. If you do nothing else. Do this. Follow the “effing” rule. Please. And all the others that have been put in place to keep us safe. Honestly. It’s not that complicated. Not that hard. Because unlike your parents, this virus won’t be letting any of us off the hook.
An aside: I know none of my readers would do this but feel free to share with someone you know who might.
I don’t know about you but when I was growing up there were plenty of things I was told to do, or not to do which admittedly, I ignored. Looking back, I now realize of course, that I wasn’t always right and while rules might be made to be broken I probably shouldn’t have broken all of them. To be fair though, not everything I was told warranted the same level of adherence. Let’s face it. There was a modicum of exaggeration to some of these admonitions. For example, the vast majority of us who ran with a pencil, scissors, or sucker in our hand never actually lost an eye. I’m not saying it never happened. I’m just saying that it probably didn’t happen as often as the ‘rents led us to believe. And there were those that simply turned out not to be true. If I have to be honest, and I am nothing but honest, my children turned out to be way less trouble to me than I was for my parents. And even though I made my share of funny faces, my face never froze in time which, now that I think about it, might not have been such a bad thing. And I don’t ever recall either of my parents turning around to go home just because we were making too much noise in the backseat of the car. Nonetheless, I admit that there was a great deal of good advice imparted to me over the course of my life to which I did listen. I mean I never jumped off a cliff just because all of my friends did and, as a parent, I do now understand all those things they told me I would when I had kids of my own. 
As you can well imagine it has been rather difficult to write a shallow blog during this pandemic. Admittedly, the impact of COVID-19 has not (yet) had a major effect on my life. To be brutally honest, it has been frighteningly easy for me to confine myself to my home and to connect with others primarily through Zoom, Facebook, Google Hangouts, Skype and that old fashioned mode of communication, the telephone. Yes it’s true, I still do have a landline. Sure it’s been hard to give up my grocery shopping habit. Thursday used to be a big day in our house what with the delivery of all the flyers. Now it’s one trip, in and out, sales or no sales, and I thank my lucky stars I am able to continue to stock my pantry with what I need. But I am painfully aware that for many life has taken a dramatic downturn financially, physically and emotionally, and I do not for one minute want to minimize the sadness and suffering our friends, family and those we do not know, are feeling right now. Our world has turned upside down. Everything has changed. The most common and perhaps accurate description I’ve heard is “
I love baking. I don’t think I have to tell you, at least those of you that know me, that these are three words I never thought I would utter. And if you don’t believe me, just ask my children. They are the ones who suffered through the late evenings when I was compelled to at least attempt to fulfill my duty as the “muffin mom”. You know. The one who must provide muffins for the entire class on an appointed day which, from what I can recall, was the third Thursday of each month. Honestly, I have tried to block this whole episode from my mind because here’s what would happen on the rare occasion when my husband, who was by any measure a very competent baker, was not available to take on the task. 
A rather strange thing has been happening over the past week. Well at first I thought it was strange but now that things have turned a corner in this world I suppose it isn’t. As you may or may not know, WordPress (they are the guys that let me write and publish this blog and to whom, in the next few days, I will once again send my 24 bucks) lets me see how many people are reading my posts and which posts they are reading. Now as you know I have a small but loyal following and I really appreciate that many of you actually click on my posts when I post them. I don’t want to bog you down with technicalities so suffice to say that typically a new post will generate views for about 3 or 4 days, with the majority coming in around 3 to 4 minutes after it goes live (as they say in the biz) and waning fairly significantly thereafter. As time marches on it is not unheard of, but rare for anyone to revisit a post from the past and to be honest, I’m pretty ok with that. I mean I don’t even revisit them so why would anyone else? 
