It’s Going to Be an Awkward Summer
What will happen when people’s levels of Covid comfort don’t match up?
My wife and I were walking the dog the other day, unmasked, as we have almost every day since the pandemic started. As a couple came toward us on the sidewalk, we did what we have gotten used to doing over the past year — my wife and I moved a couple of feet off the sidewalk to give the other couple a little extra space while we walked past them.
As we passed, the lady said, in practiced Midwestern passive-aggressiveness, “Thanks, I guess, but there’s enough room on the sidewalk for all of us, you know.” Her message: you two are being over-cautious ninnies for stepping aside and giving people extra space. Your behavior is ridiculous and kind of annoying.
It was just a small incident — it ended there, we didn’t say anything in return — but it struck me as a sign of what’s to come over the next couple of months.
On one hand, the woman we passed was in many ways correct. My wife and I are fully vaccinated, and the couple we passed seemed old enough to have had the chance to be vaccinated if they wanted to be. We were outside, which meant that we probably wouldn’t have infected them even if we had somehow been contagious and had brushed shoulders with them. There was probably no need to give them…
