Even though I’m perfectly healthy, my life is wasting away because of COVID-19. Allow me to explain.
I was recently in line at the grocery store, waiting to check out. The woman behind the register was wearing a mask and a big plastic face shield, and was separated from the customers by a large Plexiglas barrier. The man checking out was wearing a mask, had his Air Pods in both ears and was talking on the phone.
The conversation between them went something like this:
Employee: “Muffpft tm mmummffft.”
Customer: “What?”
Employee: “Muffpft tm mmummffft!”
Customer: “What?”
Employee: “MUFFPFT TM MMUMMFFT!”
Customer: “WHAT?”
At this point, the customer removed an Air Pod from one of his ears and leaned toward the employee. The employee lifted her shield, pulled down her mask and leaned around the Plexiglas barrier.
Employee: “Welcome to Kroger.”
From start to finish, the entire exchange took about 20 seconds. That’s 20 seconds of my life I’ll never get back.
Maybe you think that 20 seconds isn’t such a big deal. But that’s not the only 20 seconds I’ve lost and the communication problem that comes from multiple layers of “protection” isn’t the only thing wasting my time.
I figure I spend at least two minutes a day being delayed because of some silly-ass rule put in place to help contain the “COVID crisis”. And, I’m nearly certain that everyone who reads this is having similar experiences. Do any of these situations seem familiar?
- You had to stand in a line outside because the capacity of the store or restaurant had been limited.
- You had to stand in line at a normal cash register because the self-checkout and express lanes had been closed.
- You had to wait for your turn while areas were being “sanitized for your protection”.
- You were kept on hold because the company you’re calling has staff staying “safer at home” because they simply tested positive for exposure to the virus that might give them COVID-19.
- You had to park blocks away from your destination because the streets have been cordoned off to allow for outdoor dining.
I’d be willing to bet cash money that all of those things seem familiar to you. But, they also probably happen so often that they’ve become background noise you don’t even notice anymore.
All of these things add up and can easily combine to be more than two minutes a day. But let’s go with two minutes because some days will be more, some days will be less, and two minutes is probably a pretty good average.
If 20 seconds doesn’t seem like much to you, maybe two minutes doesn’t either. But, two minutes a day over the course of a year adds up to 12 hours of lost time.
I’m perfectly healthy. Everyone I know is perfectly healthy. Yet, in the name of COVID-19, we’ve each had a half a day of our lives stolen when we weren’t paying attention. Now I don’t know about you, but I can think of thousands of things I would have rather done with those 12 hours than wait for the government to protect me.
This isn’t just another one of my thought experiments. We’ve recently passed the one-year anniversary of the beginning of these ridiculous rules and lockdowns. If you’re like me, and you lost an average of two minutes every day for the entire year because of COVID-19-related silliness, then 12 hours of your life has been wasted away. Forever.
