Writingbolt's Creation

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I’ve got a bone to pick with these quarantine commercials that have flooded TV time. Actually, I have two.

If I have to hear “And, remember; we’re in this together,” ONE more time, I just might crack. How can I possibly forget those words…or even how many people I see in one place and on TV? If I started a drinking game–as I am often tempted to do when mad moments like these arise–I’d be piss drunk before one show ended.

Secondly and initially most importantly…wait, I just about forgot what I was going to say…darn viral memory…AH yes. The THANK YOU, HEROES ads. Yes. Those melodramatic, tear-jerking lil pieces put together by celebrities and local news stations, alike, set to violin and/or slow piano music, giving special regard and thanks to “those who are on the front lines.” Now there’s another phrase that could send me to piss-drunk status. Front lines? Oh, you mean like the lines at the front of the grocery stores; right? Where family and friends go to pay for the food and supplies we all desperately need? ‘Not actual soldiers fighting at some line cut across a warring nation like Iraq (after SO many ads for “supporting the troops”).

[Actually, that’s not a bad idea for a comic strip. I just might work on that, next; a war scene from the front lines of the quarantine struggle.]

Now, isn’t that something. We show and give text for the workers, the warehouse processors, the medical staff and the servers (the fast-food-drive-thru-window people, the food delivery people, the grocery-store stockers and cashiers, etc.), who should be given credit ALL OF THE TIME. But, we leave out the people closest to us who go out into that dangerous world and quest for food and supplies.

The ones making money hopefully work for companies that supply them with safety, including those masks people can’t stop mentioning. But, the shoppers are LOSING money AND coming up with their own masks AND taking the same risks, if not more risks because they don’t have a utility closet/room they can run to and get some cleaning supplies which, hopefully, exist in there.

Where are the thanks for the ones closest to us who go out to forage for necessities? The nerve! Hmph!

And, like anyone who thinks holidays like Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day are a cruel joke or otherwise worthless, because those feelings should be celebrated any and/or every day, not just one day in the year, why aren’t we as thankful the rest of the year/all of the time? How grateful should these people be for your televised thanks when your attitudes and actions could just as well shift in a more shitty direction as soon as someone gives the signal to resume regular shopping and hospital-visitation habits? As if humans are capable of changing their ways so definitively that you’ll suddenly be kinder to those who help you with your groceries and medical care? It makes for a nice fairy tale, but I am inclined to expect less from people.

*ehem*

…..Thank you, family and friends, who brave the shit storm out there to bring home the goods. You are braver and more deserving of gratitude than those who observe the stay-at-home concept (or just cower in their homes) to the Nth degree. You may not get a commercial with a droning, misery-inducing soundtrack. But, you’re more important than that in my heart.

And now, we return you to your regular boring, silent blog programming.

Tshhhhhhhhh……………….

Meanwhile, as the stay-at-home mandate crumbles and the sentimental advertising finally takes a break, only to be replaced with more obnoxious drug and lawyer ads, a scene unfolds at a local grocery store……

A stocker, in the middle of loading an end cap with freshly delivered boxes of cereal, finds his display spoiled by a careless shopper who had to pick out a particular box near the bottom of the yet-unstable stack, causing several boxes to spill across the aisle. Another stocker, mopping a spill in the bottled juice aisle, sighs as another careless customer rolls her cart through the mess, adding a sticky residue to the cart’s wheels and leaving a trail. And, at one of the registers, a determined swindler argues with a cashier over an expired coupon, resulting in a manager visit and some choice words thrown at the store’s staff while sneaking a few un-purchased items out the front doors.

[That’s gratitude for ya. ‘Back to the same ol’ grind. Come on, people. We’ve got more sheeyat to shovel.]