Now, before I gift you with my keen insights into the suburban condition, I want to start with a heartfelt thanks to my brave and inspirational neighbors out there. It’s been a wild and wooly year and a half (which is being kind, if we’re being honest) and it’s taken some real steel to stay the course. It’s not a test just anyone could pass, but you did, brochacho and/or brochachette. You lived your truth. You still won’t wear a mask. Truly, from the bottom of my heart (an organ you may or may not understand in the context of this metaphor), I want to thank you for sticking to your guns, even if that means giving COVID plenty of time to mutate into something even worse.

I’ve been thinking about what I’m thankful for. Given the time of year, that’s about as bold as regular mayo when you were expecting fat free. I’m serious. Most of the time, I refuse to engage in anything that even approaches self reflection. As we all know, those sorts of antics are for naught but silly geese and beatniks.

(I know what you’re thinking, and yes, there IS a difference between them. Silly geese have 23% more cartilage in their necks than the average beatnik.)

I’m thankful for having health insurance. This month alone, the number of times I’ve had to get the necessary COVID screens for Garfunkel so they could return to school after being dismissed due to COVID-like symptoms. Thankfully, I’m able to manage the costs, because of the ceaseless march of capitalism, but also because I’m a bit of a sneakerhead.

I’m thankful that I’ve been engaging in safe and healthy practices, like social distancing and wearing masks. The first phase of COVID continues long after what could be considered a reasonable amount of time by even my great-great-great grand step uncle’s standards. This is a man who literally died waiting for the other car at a four-way stop to go first. The other car had actually been abandoned for seven months, and what looked like a driver’s silhouette was just a robust ficus that had grown from the seat.

“Long on patience, short on any other redeeming quality,” as my mother used to say. Know that Lorraine “The Blade” Wartaug-Montezstein chose her words carefully on a compulsory level.

I’m thankful that I’ll have a second shot at 2020, because the first time around, it was kind of total butt. I know a lot of people struggled with the stress and anxiety of life during a pandemic. Thanks to the Maskless Warriors out there, we’ll have reasonable cause to need to take more extreme steps, so being used to isolation is going to be a real boon.

Don’t let anyone find the audacity to tell you that you don’t have the right to live like COVID is no big whoop. I’m sorry for the language, but that would just be nonsense. I think we can all agree that one of the benefits of so many people working together in a society is so that the only people I should extend empathy to are those I know directly.

Right about now is where some filthy hippy will probably argue that humanity’s ability to survive and thrive is through working together. HORSE DROPPINGS. Our ability to convince ourselves that the rugged individualist can exist while exploiting the work of the many- now THAT is our real power.

Paul Wartaug is a Nashua native. His column appears periodically in The Sunday Telegraph.

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