I’ve been brooding about how this will likely be the first summer in decades I won’t be able to go out and swim a couple of miles every week. I’m not Masters level fast, mind you. But I love swimming. It's a full-body, cardio-vascular workout with no impact. My free-style recreational mile is usually just under 40 minutes—no toys or floaties or fins. And I do try to swim year round though my gym has been closed since February.
This put me in mind of what it was like when my kids were young and we would take them swimming. We wanted them to develop a love of the water at a young age. And we were gratified they all grew up to be on their swim teams, train to become lifeguards, and take up scuba diving—one of my great loves.
Every once in awhile we would get to the pool just as some kid had pooped 💩 in the shallow end. The lifeguards would have to clear everyone out for 24 hours while they shocked the pool with chlorine and ran a full filtration cycle.
This pandemic is actually a lot like that. This country has a big poop 💩 problem. The coronavirus is the poop in the social pool, and the stay-at-home, isolation, quarantining, and social distancing regimes are the 24-hour reboot.
The only problem now is that some people—some wealthy, some armed, some governors, and some presidents—want to reopen the pool before they’ve cleaned out all the poop 💩. And plenty of the loudest mouths are happy to let YOU be the poop 💩 swimmers 🏊♂️ so their stock portfolios or poll numbers won’t tank.
So, all I’m saying is don’t be a poop swimmer 💩🏊♂️! It's too early to re-open the economy without proper planning and precautions. The folks urging us to go in too early are not lifeguards; our health and safety is not their first concern.
Let’s let the filtration cycle run its full course and get the place cleaned out. This may take months. We may risk a second and third wave of COVID-19 which could be devastating. We all want to get back in the pool as soon as possible, but it’s not worth a mouthful of virus—or poop 💩 for that matter.
I envy your swimming capacity. My parents tried to instill competence in us via lessons at the Y, but my timid little 5-year-old self washed out at Pollywog I. I love to swim, though, and probably make your non-Masters level appear to be precisely that. You've no doubt nurtured lotto-level lucky offspring seen from several perspectives.
ReplyDeleteI don't wanna poop in this comment pool, but < there's my but) the wealthy and armed world leaders who want to— or, rather *are opening* the pool are the norm, not the exception. One could quibble about where the US stands as far as being ready to take that step vis a vis various other Eurolands, but the fact remains that yesterday, in spite of our straddling our own poison magic number of +1 rate of infection standard, our bars and restaurants are opening and most public services have gone from no-go to minimal activity. This is not because of any rogue actors pressuring the Chancellor, but because most federal states are following the guidelines set forth by her administration. And, as we know, she is the current model brand of greatest world leader.
Maybe the collective breath we began holding last night will enable the innkeepers to tread the water in which they were drowning. But it is poop infested. I could go on about our much vaunted test & track capacity. Suffice it to say that we are in a global economy that suffocates our options unless we were to fundamentally change the way we do things, and I know of no president, past or present or potentially future who is willing to even hint at the overhaul required to save us.
Not a poop in the pool at all. We are all in peril. We are all watching Germany eagerly. The curves—second and third wave—from 1918 are mortifying. That can't be emphasized enough.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Current circumstances just happen to reveal that it is a myth that humans can be united by a common cause. I think it's something to do with an original poison or sorts. Maybe Satan told Eve it was okay to eat the turd.
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