Snitching, Part 2

Walking into the market yesterday, I stopped and began staring at an old guy, also walking in, that wasn’t wearing a mask.

As our eyes met and he realized I was staring at him, it was on the tip of my tongue to ask, “Where’s your mask?” But then he disarmed me with a pleasantry ─ he smiled and said “Hello. How are you?”.

Damn him for being a sweet old guy, when I was primed and ready for an incident that would probably end up on the internet because, in my mind, the confrontation would end up with yelling, culminating by my having to pepper spray him.

There’s always a person stationed by the door to enforce the “no mask no entry” rule. Sometimes it’s private security, sometimes a worker. That day it was a worker, a young woman who was asleep at the wheel, looking at her phone.

So, as I stood in stunned silence as old guy went on his merry way, walking up to another worker, asking her a question and she, instead of saying “Sir, you cannot be in here without a mask” began leading him to the item he was questioning. It was then that the snitch in me came out again.

I walked over to little miss asleep at the wheel and said, “That guy doesn’t have a mask”.

She immediately came to attention, picked up a small box from her station, ran after the guy and gave him a mask from the box.

I didn’t wait to see if he actually used it.

I’m a person that doesn’t like to get involved, but here I am snitching twice in one week. First was when I pointed out, to the chopper, the direction that guy running through the complex went, and now this.

I’m hoping not to make a habit of this snitching, getting involved, because my position has always been that of a drop out, a watcher, observer ─ not being fully invested in this world, but rather standing on the outside looking in. However, now I find myself not only getting involved by snitching but, for the first time I actually did that Census thing.

It left a bad taste in my mouth that I actually gave into the constant barrage of notices that I’d not completed and returned the Census, but I capitulated, went through the online process, and got those census people off my back.

And not only that but, unable to sleep last night, because I couldn’t clear my mind of how surreal it is that an unarmed Black man defied the police by walking around to the driver's side of his SUV and got himself shot seven times in the back BUT a white kid was allowed to walk around with an AR-15, shoot and kill two people, injure one, and got a bottle of water and a thank you from the cops. So, after finally falling asleep along about 2 a.m., waking up late at 11:00, I jumped online and registered to vote ... for the first time.

You read that right. At 76 years of age, this will be my first time voting.

Shocked as you all might be, it won’t compare to how shocked my girls will be. I can’t wait to tell Twin 2 that I’ve registered because she used to get into arguments in class discussions when she’d say her mom won’t do jury duty and doesn’t vote because her mom didn’t like "wasting her time" (my explanation to the girls for my choosing to opt out of social obligations) on those things.

On another note, our quad is full again.

On Tuesday, I was coming down the stairs and greeted a woman I saw walking through the quad. She greeted me back and, just to make conversation, said, “It’s difficult to breathe in this mask”.

“Especially when it’s this hot”, replied I.

When I saw her turn into the walkway towards the unit Nosey occupied before passing away, I asked, “Are you the new neighbor?”, to which she replied she was.

After introducing myself and welcoming her to the complex, inasmuch as I never saw anyone moving in, and had assumed the unit was still vacant because I’d seen no signs of life — no one coming/going, had not seen any lights on — though I’d not really looked, and the blinds and patio doors were always closed, I asked, “When did you move in?”.

“July 29”.

She’s been here a month already and I never noticed a thing, so I said “Wow! You keep a low profile”.

“That’s because my kids don’t want me leaving the unit until the pandemic is over. They’re saying two years.”

The new neighbor seems friendly enough. Not like Illusive Unfriendly — the neighbor in the downstairs unit underneath me. Illusive has been here since April 2017 and, when she moved in, wasn’t having it when I tried to introduce myself and welcome her. She chased me away by giving me a cold hard stare, raising her voice and yelling, “I DON’T LIKE PEOPLE!”.

Except, I have noticed that though she avoids us in the quad — won't look us in the eye, walks the other way rather than speak, she doesn’t appear to have a problem liking, looking in the eye, speaking when the people are men. While sitting on my perch on the couch one day, I actually spotted her running down the walkway to catch up with and have words with Big Friendly Guy, who turned around and followed her into her unit. LOL.

Oh well. Whatever.

So anyway, plan for today was to head to the air-conditioned mall to qualify in the OC Fair Virtual 5K. However, it will have to wait for another day because, waking up so late, I’ve decided to focus on purging the unit of items I no longer need or want, because I look around and see just so much unnecessary stuff.