New Catallaxy

An idle hour in the Covid era

Went to my usual café this morning to buy a coffee. While waiting on a stool outside, sans mask, not even knowing whether that’s allowed or not, I asked the owner whether he’d yet had the jab. Just making conversation.

He said he’s had the first one. AstraZeneca? I asked.  Yes, he said. How was it, I inquired? OK, he replied, before revealing to me that he hadn’t had it all. He knows my views but obviously took a moment to orient himself. He revealed that he had to say he’d had the jab. Some customers had reacted badly when he’d said he hadn’t and he was concerned that they wouldn’t return.

Sneaked into the local newsagent unmasked, with the right money, and scurried out with my newspaper, feeling I’d bucked authority.

Afterwards, I sipped my coffee on a bench talking with a friend; neither with mask in sight.  I keep my coffee in my hand long after I’ve drunk it lest the fuzz come by.  A masked man walks by looking intently at us. Looks like a scold but I pointedly say good morning and he responds. Could have been wrong.

Peter Smith

22 responses to “An idle hour in the Covid era”

  1. rosie Avatar
    rosie

    Welcome to the club Peter.
    My daughter and I sat blithely with empty coffee cups as a gaggle of police and soldiers walked past one sunny day last year.

    We are better at fake drinking from an empty container than any professional actor on the TV.
    😉

    1
  2. CrazyOldRanga Avatar
    CrazyOldRanga

    I do believe that there will be businesses out there actively encouraging the unvaxxed as governments ramp up the propaganda and intimidation. Guaranteed custom.

    3
  3. Muddy Avatar
    Muddy

    I foresee a fashion accessory opportunity here: a coffee cup on a chain. Or a coffee cup that can be clipped to your waistband? A collapsible cup would be preferable, but you might need to argue it can be drunk from. Hmmm.

  4. MatrixTransform Avatar
    MatrixTransform

    I do believe that there will be businesses out there actively encouraging the unvaxxed

    There will certainly be customers who will be jerking the chain of businesses who proclaim they’ll will only serve the VX’d.

    …just a feeling I have

    5
  5. calli Avatar
    calli

    Living on the Edge in 2021.

    Could you have imagined anything like this in 2019?

    2
  6. a reader Avatar
    a reader

    Imagine living in a society where you literally have to invent ways to break the law to remain sane

    3
  7. Woolfe Avatar
    Woolfe

    Read this post and ponder how we got here.

    We must make these bastards pay at the ballot box, but unfortunately the smooth brains won’t.

    3
  8. duncanm Avatar
    duncanm

    maybe walk around with a hydration pack on your back?

    Stop the world. I want to step off.

  9. Shy Ted Avatar
    Shy Ted

    ASIO thanks you, Peter. Says they’ll see you soon and thanks for the confession.

  10. Bruce of Newcastle Avatar
    Bruce of Newcastle

    When out walking I’ve been smiling warmly and saying Good Morning! to masked walkers. It works: they can’t scowl at my entirely legal exercising(TM) masklessness when I’m saying nice things to them. Psychological warfare is fun!

    1
  11. Wally Dalí Avatar
    Wally Dalí

    Looks like a scold but I pointedly say good morning and he responds. Could have been wrong.
    It’s almost like masks could be dehumanising, for both masked and unmasked, eh?

    2
  12. Mother Lode Avatar
    Mother Lode

    There are four categories to consider here:

    A) People who have taken the vaccine who think everyone else must.
    B) People who have taken the vaccine who do not think everyone else must.
    C) People who have not taken the vaccine who do not think everyone else must not.
    D) People who have not taken the vaccine who do think everyone else must not.

    B and C are not a problem.

    A & D are the prickly ones.

    The barista has concluded that crossing the A’s will result in most damage to business – that they are more numerous (a larger proportion of his customers) than D’s.

    I wonder how many of A’s are this way because they have had the vaccine and, now that they learn that there might be problems of side effects, or more likely that boosters will be eternal and may not work on new variants, just want to make sure everyone else is in the same boat so they will be no worse off than anyone else.

    3
  13. Roger Avatar
    Roger

    I wonder how many of A’s are this way because they have had the vaccine and, now that they learn that there might be problems of side effects, or more likely that boosters will be eternal and may not work on new variants, just want to make sure everyone else is in the same boat so they will be no worse off than anyone else.

    I think it’s more likely they’re like Karl Stefanovic (as someone reported here yesterday) and believe that an 80% vaccination rate really will defeat the virus and allow us to open up as they haven’t been exposed to contrary views or reports in the msm.

    1
  14. areff Avatar
    areff

    Keep a fag tucked behind your ear. Stopped by the filth? ‘Just about to light up, officer, which the authorities permit.’

    1
  15. areff Avatar
    areff

    Neil Mitchell, apparatchik, has just been going on about the moral obligation to reach 80%.

    Try telling him about Israel and you’ll be cut off. Mention ivermectin and you’ll be dropped instantly.

    1
  16. Roger Avatar
    Roger

    Try telling him about Israel and you’ll be cut off. Mention ivermectin and you’ll be dropped instantly.

    Remember when the Left used to inveigh against censorship?

    2
  17. Mother Lode Avatar
    Mother Lode

    Remember when the Left used to inveigh against censorship?

    They championed free speech when they were not running things but were convinced that more people should listen to them – so blurring ‘free’ and ‘equal’ they demanded platforms to amplify their voices.

    Now they have squatting on the institutions (suffocating them even as they do) they want to shut everyone else up.

    They never believed in free speech. Just their entitlement to talk. As far as they are concerned others never had that right.

    3
  18. ikamatua Avatar
    ikamatua

    On my walk yesterday a bloke was coming down his drive just as I walked past. He recoiled up the drive and I skittered off onto the nature strip.
    I looked at him and said “Look at us, scared of each other”.
    We both cracked up laughing.
    It’s bloody strange, innit?

    2
  19. MatrixTransform Avatar
    MatrixTransform

    Neil Mitchell, apparatchik …

    … thinks the real world is a projection of his imagination

    2
  20. Rabz Avatar
    Rabz

    I wonder how many of A’s are this way because they have had the vaccine and, now that they learn that there might be problems of side effects, or more likely that boosters will be eternal and may not work on new variants, just want to make sure everyone else is in the same boat so they will be no worse off than anyone else.

    97% of the “As” would be collectivists. Given collectivism is driven by envy and stupidity, you’ve summed up their thinking perfectly.

    1
  21. Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare Avatar
    Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare

    Tradie in from an LGA of Concern today to fix (declare dead) our washing machine volunteered that he’d had ‘the first shot’ of the vaxx. He didn’t say which one and we didn’t ask, nor did we expect him to mention it. Obviously he thought it a good idea, but something in the way he said it made me doubt him. His cloth non-surgical mask was a sodden mess. We wore our disposable surgical ones in case he dobbed us in for illegality in the home. I got the sense that all three of us felt this was silly but we did the charade. His job might have been on the line if we’d turned out to be dobbers, and we might have been fined if he turned out to be so. Mutual distrust. So horrible a way to live.

  22. Joanna Avatar
    Joanna

    Neil Mitchell, apparatchik …

    John Faine with a sports car.

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