Day 161: Your Revolting Hero

I’m posting early because it’s raining and I have a batch of instant emails.

It seems that I have two kinds of readers. One type attacks me for implying that DHS—or anyone, really—has done anything wrong. Emails call me “traitor,” “renegade,” and best of all, “human sunken retrovirus.” That one’s a little obscure, but it’s fun to break down. The gist here is that I should never have … what?

THEY COULD HAVE USED RELENZA AT VALLEY FORGEI reported what I saw, added no judgments. Those who condemn me as a “quisling”—in rather obscure reference to a Norwegian Fascist who administered his occupied country for Hitler—betray their own dark thoughts as to what it means that I saw what I saw. Hey, maybe the State of New Jersey needs to send plainclothes goons to pick up federally distributed antiviral medicine in a Manhattan party boat. Heck, George Washington used a far shabbier vessel to cross the Delaware and surprise the Germans in New Jersey.

The second group thinks I should drop everything and run, that I have dangerously vexed the military-pharmaceutical-industrial complex. These folks say I’m “brave” and “insane.” They counsel me to lie low till the pandemic has long concluded. Wouldn’t they miss my bloggings? I’m insulted!

If I believed the government capable of executing much of anything, let alone an obscure, dissident mask vendor, I could sweat. But these clowns can’t even deliver boxes. I doubt my fate is of much interest to them or anyone else. My buddy Bart never called back, so my little tale has concluded in a blink.

Believers in both groups contributed religious spin. One branded me an “atheistic scum who wouldn’t see the truth if God painted it on [my] eyeballs.” Conversely, a reader commiserated that this godless society ought to get what it deserves, but said he hopes I “will be spared, God willing.”

Then came variations on my bread and butter. The patriots threatened not to buy masks and gloves and goggles from me; the paranoids warned that no one else would buy protective gear from me because I’m too outspoken.

The good news: There were a lot of paranoids, so my business will easily endure any drop off in demand from the Washington Rules gang. To welcome the alarmists. We’ve cut prices AND added a new line of less-expensive disposable masks.