No Face Masks Required

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

I have a face covering.  It is a "round the neck pulled it up to your face" kind used when out riding dirt bikes.  It has a skull on it, and I have worn it, perhaps, half a dozen times during this entire COVID scamdemic.

I wore it mostly at stores where they would just not leave me alone, and they were the only place I could buy a particular product.  For the most part, if a business requires me to wear the mask, and refuses to work with me otherwise, they lose my business.

It took me going to five shoe stores before I found one who didn't jump all over me for not wearing a face covering.  The shoes were a little more expensive, there, but they got my business.

California Governor Gavin Newsom "ordered" us recently to wear our masks in public, so the hysteria has gotten a little more nuttier.  I have been told a number of times, "it's the law."

Newsom can't make law.  His orders hold no legal power because there is no legislative backing.  Besides, since when can government, even if it was a law, mandate for me to wear a particular piece of clothing?  What's next?  Are they going to order me to wear an arm band with a Democrat "D" on it?

I usually walk with a cane, and I am hard of hearing due to being deaf in my left ear and suffering from very loud tinnitus, as a result of my military service.  But, I am only considered 80% disabled, so I don't get a nice blue disabled placard.  That's fine.  I can walk, and usually I can hear with my right ear, or at least I can if someone is not wearing a stupid mask.  Seeing a person's lips help, and the voice being clearer and louder without a mask helps, too.

Today, when we went to Wal-Mart, who has been ridiculous about the masks, but not authoritarian about them, it turned out that our local store has gone completely to the dark side.

At the entrance a woman told me I could not go in because I was not wearing a mask.  My maskless wife said, "we are exempt, he needs to see my lips to communicate with me."

We entered, and another Wal-mart employee began barking at me.  My wife repeated the line, and then we walked in despite the employee's continue objection.  I was waiting for her to tackle me, but it never happened.

Once in the store we were the only people, employees and customers, not wearing masks.  I kind of chuckled under my breath, as I mouthed the word, "sheep."

When asking employees things, when they replied, if my wife was not at my side, I would motion to them to drop their mask, saying, "I am hard of hearing, I don't know what you are saying."

It's kind of a fun interesting twist that in this age of totalitarian masks, I am getting people to remove theirs in order to talk to me.

Then, as we were leaving, I noticed they are still doing the "in one entrance and out a different entrance" technique.  By the time we were nearing our vehicle, I was really starting to hurt from the long walk.  Though I don't have a handicapped placard, my wife usually circles parking lots a long while to try to park as close as possible.  We had nailed the first space on the other side of the handicapped spaces near the entrance, and felt fortunate for having done so. 

Having to go out of a different exit than where I came in kind of killed that whole strategy.  I looked and saw cars parked in handicapped stalls, and wondered if they were hurting due to the longer walk, too.  So, as we finally reached the entrance from the exit while walking to our vehicle, I said to the girl sitting there who was making sure everyone had a mask on, "I know you have nothing to do with it, but you might want to tell your superiors that they are probably in violation of the Disabled Person's Act making us walk so far by limiting the exits we have available to us."

She looked at me with deer in the headlights eyes, and then a patron entering the store yelled at me, "Put on your mask, a**hole!"

I simply replied, "Sorry, couldn't hear you, could you come here and take off your mask so I know what you said?"

He flipped me off, and then entered the store.

On the way home I got flipped off again.  The person was wearing a mask while alone in their own car.  What a mindless lemming.  My "Trump 2020" sticker in my window probably prompted the angry finger-assault.  I just grinned at them, and waved, as they passed me.  I noticed they had a "Biden" sticker on their back bumper, and a "Black Lives Matter" sticker in their window.  That explained everything.  I was wondering if they had enough sense left to find their way home.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary