TheAtlantic.com has a red hot opinion piece called “Where I Live, No One Cares About Covid.” In this blog post, I aim to capture the essence of the author’s quite nuanced argument. (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/where-i-live-no-one-cares-about-covid/620958/)

Greetings from southwest Michigan, where it’s just my wife and I. We’re the sole inhabitants of the entire region. And lemme tell ya, we don’t care jack squat about COVID-19.

Omicron, Delta-yon, I don’t give a crap-a-yon. My wife doesn’t, either. She says it all sounds like a Keanu Reeves movie.

While the uptight pricks in D.C., Chicago, New York, and L.A. are obsessed with health and safety during the pandemic, my wife and I have been busy living our normal lives. Attending weddings, taking vacations, going out unmasked to bars and restaurants, and giving birth to children.

Not a single time in the two years since the pandemic began have I worn a mask. Not a single time have I seen a mask. Until I traveled to D.C., that is.

I saw people wearing masks everywhere. Inside, outside—I mean everywhere. I even saw a guy do like with Queen Elizabeth and lay down his mask on a mud puddle in the street so his lady friend could step across without getting her shoes dirty. It’s disgusting what they’re doing with masks out there.

Our kids don’t have a clue about the pandemic. They know they should be aware of “germs” or something, but we never bothered to explain it to them. They’re too busy at their homeschool co-op learning all the states and capitals of flyover country.

Everybody’s got their pants in a bunch over what the CDC says. “CDC this.” “CDC that.” I say CDC shove it. When I see CDC guidance, my wife and I simply do the opposite. 

One drink per day of alcohol? Try ten. 

No coffee, wine, or cigarettes while pregnant? Two packs of Marlboro Red, please, and a couple of those coffee-flavored Mad Dog 20/20’s.

Don’t eat raw fish out of the trash can? Consider me Heathcliff the cat.

Why should COVID be any different? Sophisticated adults are capable of winking at overly stringent guidelines. I’ve been winking a lot lately. And it’s not just an allergic reaction to the raw fish from the trash can. That would explain the rash, though.

Don’t get me wrong. I get it. I’ve been to Rome. My wife has a doula friend from New York. I once had an anti-Bush t-shirt. I even understand why a rebellious teenager would don a mask at a coffee shop as a way of giving the middle finger to us old crank reactionaries.

But c’mon. This is the old switcheroo that the coastal elites are trying to pull once again. Just like they did with no-fault divorce, factory-sliced bread, Hungry Man dinners, baby formula, Upper Deck baseball cards, and Tickle Me Elmos. The fancy people all wait in line for hours upon hours to be the first to get it, then they turn around and sell it for a steep markup to the rest of us. That’s how they became millionaires. 

Pretty soon, they’ll be making us wear the masks. They won’t be wearing the masks anymore. And I’m gonna be stuck in the kitchen frying up a bloomin’ onion for their son’s birthday. 

Not if I can help it. They’ve got to find me first. My wife and I will be hiding out in southwest Michigan, where no one else lives, no one else has ever been, and where nobody at all cares about COVID. Least of all my wife and I. 

And we won’t be buying any more Tickle Me Elmo’s.