Peeing on the Electric Fence

Peeing on the Electric Fence

I have always considered myself cautious. I never dove into a pool of water without being absolutely sure no sunken logs or other hazards were lurking there with the intention of shortening my life. When I approach a green light I do so at a speed that will give me time to stop if the light changes as I approach. I don't buy the latest technology until other buyers have found all the bugs and the manufacturers have corrected them. And I don't take medicines on the advice of a pharmaceutical company, though I will listen to my doctor.

Having said that, I am aware that some people who know me just consider me stubborn or bull headed, I say as I snort and paw the ground, especially with all the conspiracy and media and political driven mania around vaccinations for the Covid virus.

Will Rogers, whom I have admired all my life, said "Some learn by reading. Some learn by observing. The rest of us have to pee on the electric fence." As an aside, when I was a kid I thought that Will and Roy Rogers were probably cousins, but after I read that Roy Rogers was a stage name, I knew I was wrong. I learned that names and people could be deceiving.

So it is no wonder that I poo pooed the very idea of masks. Yeah, I used one to be able to shop for groceries, but I didn't around my wife, my kids, my grandchildren or my buds. And vaccinations? You've got to be kidding.

I don't buy into that nonsense about tracking chips being in the vaccine. Hell, they can't even manufacture enough chips to keep car production going, no way anyone would put them in vaccines. If big brother wanted to track someone, it's probably not anyone willing to get vaccinated. Besides that would be overkill. We all got tracking chips when we were born, not!

I did my due diligence on the covid-19 virus, reading about it and observing it like Will said, and I mighta been sort of right until it got variegated, or whatever they call it. My drinking buddy Chuck's wife came down with the virus, and damned if she didn't up and die. Same thing happened to Kathy's brother who was in an assisted living place in Florida. And I saw from a Facebook post by a genie cousin in Louisiana that she's worried that her teenaged grandson might have the Covid.

Me? I never did get around to getting vaccinated. Just never was convenient, but in truth, I guess it was because of an overdose of stubbornness emboldened by living in a community of stubbornites. There's safety in the middle of a flock. The wolves only pick off those on the edge and the weak and the lame.

That's why I am on a gurney in the hallway of St Mary's Hospital, waiting with three other people for someone to die so that a respirator, or even a bed, will be freed up for us. I think I am second in line, but who knows. I'm resigned to the idea that I will be leaving this hospital in a box, if not in a bag and put into a refrigerated truck because the funeral homes are already at capacity.

I haven't even had time to mourn Ellie, my wife of fifty years. The virus took her even before I realized that she didn't just have a bad cold and needed a hospital. I just wouldn't face facts and reality, and I foolishly put my faith in Fox News with prayer as a backup. Looks like those CDC and NIH folks were right.

And Will was right, I had to pee on the electric fence to learn anything.

Darnedest thing. I just had a flash memory of picking a pear off Mrs Frye's pear tree as a kid. Does that mean I am dying?