Rules? What rules?

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 6 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

My “Secret Subject” is:

We enter a second quarantine, this time with you only being allowed to have essentials items sent in by drone. The drone can only deliver a week’s worth of food and it can’t weigh more than 20 lbs. What is the drone bringing you?

It was submitted by: https://crazymamallama.blogspot.com/


****I just want to clarify that I know the person sending this in didn't intend to rile anyone up, and it's an interesting prompt. And I do probably sound angry. I'm angry at my state government. I'm angry at my family. I'm angry at the federal government. I'm angry that people keep dying at the hands of cops.  I'm angry that last week I saw someone shot to death at a protest and a few days later the live streamer I watched got hit by a car going 80 mph...while there were hundreds of people tuned in and then they had to make their account private because people kept cheering over another protestor's deaths and wishing death on them. I'm angry that so many people willfully ignore why protests have to happen and care more about whether they're inconvenienced slightly than why the police kill Black people at 2.5 times the rate of white people, and that it opens the door for people to be openly and grossly racist and kill or attempt to kill protesters creating a cycle of violence.

I'm not ok. We're not ok.

_________________

I live in Georgia.

I suppose what we're in right now is a second wave of coronavirus, but our numbers never really dipped enough for that to be realistic. Our governor, who stole the election in the first place, waited until too late to take things seriously which both influenced the populace to also not take it seriously and made it harder to control our numbers. And now he's pretending everything is fine even as we increase 3400 cases a day.

The point is that even under the strict circumstances outlined in this prompt, I would give anything to have an actual quarantine at all, for businesses to close until it's safe and for allocating my 20lbs a week to be my biggest source of stress since I need more weight than that in dog and cat food and cat litter alone than to be worried about dying and leaving my kid with no one.

But I'm not going to get that.

I have to worry every day about some asshole who won't wear a mask meaning my death. Mask wearing isn't about wearing one to protect yourself. It's about fucking wearing one to save everyone else and so we can get back to some semblance of normalcy. Other countries have done it for a long time to prevent an individual from getting others sick. Why don't we wear them during flu season, you might ask? I don't know maybe because we value individual feelings and faux freedom over the safety and freedom of everyone. Other countries have been doing it since their populations actually, you know, give a shit about other people. I don't know how to explain to callous, selfish pricks how to care about other people enough to shut the fuck up with the conspiracies and whining and politics and Wear. A. Goddamn. Mask. You. Soggy. Piece. Of. Toast. How did we get an entire couple generations of adults who are basically ready at all times to do "whatever it takes" to protect America unless that means wearing a mask?

If you think I'm talking about you, I probably am.

20 lbs? I am poor. I cook a couple times a week with few ingredients already because I have a tight budget. 20 lbs a week to feed my family is nothing. This week alone I've made two big meals (taco stuffed peppers and chili mac) that pretty much last all week long and for much less than 20 lbs given what I already had on hand. That part--the budgeting and scrimping and creativity--is what poor people have always done. Ribs, brisket, lobster, cereal, grits...we've always made do with what we could get and made it taste so amazing that within a generation everyone wants it and the price is driven up. Lobster used to be a poor man's dish. So give me 20lbs just for food and I'm good. I got this. I will make these rules my bitch.

But pet supplies? COFFEE? Oh god I have to have ginger ale. Got to have weed....

Honestly, you let me go without coffee too long while my pets slowly starve, and I'm going to beat the shit out of the first rich person I can find and make them let me have their deliveries. We all know they won't face the same stipulations anyway. Put people in a bind like this, and they will fight for life. I would.

Fuck around and find out.

_________________________

Baking In A Tornado  https://www.bakinginatornado.com/2020/07/word-play-or-nay-secret-subject-swap.html?fbclid=IwAR3c8aQ_ZewSsCUsTCgTH3EsQkuK22FRfm2815zLcDez7K0Otj0xg5qPxHc

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

A ‘lil HooHaa https://hoohaa.com/?p=14917&fbclid=IwAR373-TroknNunp-Mb8oLnGaV8jIEj9ki-e51nA8afoSEUpaoZ9TFbJ20Lo

The Crazy Mama Llama https://crazymamallama.blogspot.com/

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2020/07/secret-subject-swap-cockroach.html?fbclid=IwAR2FJocxpTt2mascImcxRIBBK5VTJrO5RrBxo_v-4r2HLFK1NCQIaQ60LTc

These Days

My windows are rolled partway down while I drive home this evening. The warm, humid air ruffling my bangs hasn’t really affected the heavy aroma of slow-boiled cabbage permeating every inch of air space in my car; I just can’t shake the smell.

I’m on the way home after work. It’s a 45 mile drive. Some people tell me they couldn’t commute so far day in and day out, but I love my time on the road with my favorite bands cranked up to speaking-blowing volumes. Today with the breeze forcefully caressing my skin and the beauty of the sunset before me, I couldn’t ask for a better time. This must be why the song “These Days”  by the Black Keys sucker punches me straight on, no holds barred.

Dan Auerbach’s soulful croon makes me smirk with the line “Men come in different shades. That’s how we’re made” and its universal truth. But in the next moment, his sorrow surrounds me like a blanket. “that little house on Ellis drive is where I felt most alive. The oak tree covered that old Ford. I miss it, Lord. I miss it, Lord.” All his emotion spills through my speakers and threatens to spill from my eyes. I am completely overtaken.

And in that same moment I realize how much I love everything I have and everything I am. 

I have that small house. That simple life. My existence is surrounded by the beauty of Spanish Moss covered trees and punctuated by pink sunsets not "violent colors so obscene." The minutes spent hand turning the earth for the garden in my front yard or sitting around the room laughing with friends will never be seen as wasted time. Even as Auerbach fills my ears with his melancholy regrets, I realize more than ever that my choice to live this life instead of making the choice for something more glitzy has made me a better person. 

Georgia, despite popular opinion, has not and will not ruin me. And, here is Dan Auerbach to attest to this truth. 

My car is filled with the scent of cabbage because the woman who delivers medicines at the pharmacy where I work cooked a meal today. She woke up early. 5 a.m. early. She labored in her kitchen, this 65 year old fairy godmother of mine who can tell the dirtiest of jokes. The ham baked to tender, juicy deliciousness in the oven while she cut cabbage and let it boil then simmer its way to perfection. She cooked rice with neck bones added for flavor and whipped up a batch of Jiffy cornbread muffins. And she did all this before coming to work at a place where she is often taken for granted. We enjoyed the meal at lunch cracking jokes and complaining about the natives, and when the day was done, she offered the entire batch of leftovers to me to take home for myself and my roommates. Her giving nature never ceases. 

I had to leave a kidney as collateral that I’d actually bring her dishes back this time. 

The Southern Sunday dinner smells only add to my appreciation of these days. My days. And it makes me embrace the woeful nature of this song even more intensely. I realize how many regrets I would have if I left my life behind to chase after greener grass; that realization makes me understand the sadness in this song all the more. And a tear rolls down one cheek.

I may look back at this time one day and miss it, but for now, there is nothing wrong with living in my little corner of the world.