Just a thought… In the age of information, ignorance is a choice. [Donny Miller]

I don’t know what we’ve done to deserve friends like the ones who dropped off a chocolate Bundt cake (with icing and chocolate chips drizzled over the top), peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, homemade pasta sauce, plus dry pasta and fresh basil yesterday. But whatever it is, Rob and I will try to keep doing it!

We’d already promised them a drop-off of chicken cacciatore (plus dry pasta and a chunk of Parmesan wrapped with bows) but honestly – dessert, too? We’re not worthy!

Just seeing them in our driveway yesterday for a brief, distanced chat raised our spirits immeasurably. As usual, talk turned to masks and Rob and I remarked that our recent rare grocery outing saw us as two of only four people in the whole store wearing masks. I just don’t get this. And I’m going to keep wearing a mask so I don’t  “get it,” if you know what I mean.

I don’t care if we look as if we’re erring on the side of caution; I keep in mind that I wear mine not to catch it, but to prevent spreading it in the highly unlikely case that we have the virus. (Where would we get it – dog walks or freshly baked cookies? Doubtful.)

As voices around us in protest over self-isolation and the shutdown of so many sectors of our economy continue to get louder in their agitation – and don’t get me started with the COVIDiots with their guns in Michigan recently – I’m still going to withstand the online taunts that I’m some cowardly granny. I don’t give a rat’s behind what some stranger says.

I was gearing up (in my busy, busy head) for someone at the store to laugh at me or say something about my mask. I was prepared to lie, borrowing my sister’s illness and saying, “How do you know I don’t have lupus, a–hole?” just to see what their response would be. I don’t have it. But what if I did?

That imagined altercation was sparked by a conversation we had with our friend and my former radio pal Mike Cooper. He said he was in a store in Peterborough a few weeks back and was wearing a mask while trying to avoid a fellow shopper who was back-to-back with him in the aisle. The guy said to Mike, “You know the whole thing’s a hoax, right?”

I’ll give you a multiple choice option as to what you think Mike responded. Was it:

a) Please tell me what the source of your news is. I’m most interested.

b) Hmmm….I hadn’t though of that – you’re probably right!

c) Oh, f–k off, you f–king idiot.

If you guessed a) or b) – Welcome! I bet you’ll really enjoy meeting Mike one day.

Of course, the answer was c). And then – after we’d stopped laughing – Mike told us that, naturally, the guy was right behind him at the checkout!

I reminded Mike that – mask or not – he has some of the most distinctive eyebrows on the planet! And that is, if his voice didn’t give him away.

Then again, the guy he had the “discussion” with probably tunes into Rush Limbaugh anyway.

That’s part of what made Mike and me the team we were: such polar opposites. While I would have fretted for days about even asking someone why they’d comment on my mask if I had an auto-immune disease, Mike revelled in letting the expletives fly and land where they might.

I’d say we all need a little Mike in us, but then he’d take that entirely the WRONG WAY (while correcting me about the “little” part).

Hope you got a laugh as we all get through this together. And thanks for coming along for the ride.