What started off as Ireland’s first two weeks lockdown turned into a year of mayhem.
Mayhem you say?
OH YES!
- The thought of initially shutting down for two weeks meant that pubs and restaurants, our “ZEN zones” shut down too!
- The thought of shutting down for two weeks meant that our nationwide holistic wellness center “Penneys” shutdown too!
- The thought of shutting down for two weeks meant that our gyms that entertained and contoured our slay kings and slay queens shutdown too!
While the cosmetics were moaning and groaning. The hardworking Irish men, women and nonbinary were ecstatic! What exactly did this mean?
- Two weeks off work meant project time. That gardening, refurbishing, spring cleaning, etc could finally begin.
- Two weeks off super-parenting duties. What did these kids think? I’m a machine or something? We could all finally sleep in and look forward to family bonding time given most of us rarely saw our kids during the week.
- Two weeks off meant everything good that had nothing to do with everything bad connected to everyday life, and that was satisfactory enough.
Then there were the frontline workers who finally got the recognition and long awaited appreciation from centuries of hard work serving humanity. We were on the frontline of a war against the unseen, unknown and untouchable. What an honour, but this honour came with the usual banter, the long hours, little to no pay, fatigue, separation from friends and family, loss of colleagues, anxiety and depression. All the while doing the best we could to either save as many lives as possible or make the last moments of life as comfortable as possible. The two week lockdown for frontline workers was merely an ordinary work week beyond extraordinary measures.
Two weeks extended to four weeks, then six weeks, lets not forget the few attempts of normalcy that further pushed it to three months. PS: It wasn’t a dream, we did celebrate Christmas and as many of us (the wise, thoughtful and intelligent ones) kept it local, some pandemic warriors skipped town and skipped right back into the country as pandemic-distributors.
Now here we are almost a year later wondering what in the world just happened? Not only has the world been forced at pandemic gun point to adjust to the “new normal”, but new vocabulary has also made a debut. In case you’ve been oblivious due to virtually acceptable psychological circumstances, you’ve been served with; ‘wet’ pubs and ‘dry’ pubs, “self-isolate”, “lockdown”, “pandemic”, “coronavirus”, and the list of phrases, words and the lot goes on. Now we’ve shifted gears towards Covid-19 vaccines and we’re currently raging at the governments inefficiency towards mass vaccinations by ‘such and such’ a date or else… Oh how we wish our government was run by self-acclaimed psychics, ritualists, gurus and spiritual masters because these unforeseen predictions has a lot more to be desired especially when our exhausted livelihoods lay in the hands of pharmaceutical companies.
Yes AstraZeneca, I’m talking to you!
Now let’s drop the politics and marvel at the live performance by City Centers finest, “The Lockdown Protesters” and the individuals who thought firing fireworks at Gardaí would blow up the virus and voila!!! our right to freedom would be restored instantly. Well from where I’m seated, it seems we’re on a mission to stay on lockdown another 365days soothingly paying tax on our Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) plan. Here’s some free advice Gardaí, next time call in the Pandemic X Squad, with the Sanitiser cannons!
Like the rest of you’all I’m done! In the meantime I’m working safe, sipping on hard liquor that has me burning my hard earned pay. Thanks to the new rules and brutal assassination of our multi-buy deals ‘6 bottles for €40’ and death of alcohol voucher schemes. You’ll find me on TikTok at lunchbreak, watching Ireland’s top 10 list on Netflix on my days off and counting down to my next AstraZeneca vaccine in twelve weeks.
Until then…
Keep your filthy hands clean, wear your damn mask correctly and atleast have the decency to keep windows open on the bus. That foggy situation has me walking to work often dodging viral cues.