Margo Perin
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Don’t Talk to Strangers

3/4/2022

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Picture
        I went to See’s Candies yesterday to buy a box of chocolates to thank the nurses and doctors who recently saved me from the angel of death. The Covid safety mandate change to masks being optional have not changed the behavior of the majority of the population where I live, where most people are still wearing them. Those who aren’t are those who either refused to wear them during the most restrictive times or wore them around their necks or hanging from their ears as some kind of statement of virility or whatever. So, at the candy store, it wasn’t surprising that of the cluster of customers and three staff, only one person wasn’t wearing one. Of the same gender and color as you can imagine. But it still made me mad. (I’m immune compromised and get sick for several weeks even if only a cold has come to visit.)
         Outside the store, observing an older-than-me woman as protected against the elements as I was and coming out fully N95 masked, I said, “Can I tell you a joke?” ignoring the smoke signals of her non-response.
         “How many (gender + color) does it take to put on a mask?"
         She shook her head, taking off her mask and grumbling as she walked away, “I don’t get involved” or something to that effect. She then sat on a bench, unfolded the lid of her small white paper bag and ate her solitary piece of chocolate.
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    Margo Perin

    Margo Perin likes to share what she finds funny, sad, or what makes her think, sometimes all three, and she hopes it does the same for you. She is the author of Plexiglass, The Opposite of Hollywood, Only the Dead Can Kill: Stories from Jail, and How I Learned to Cook & Other Writings on Complex Mother Daughter Relationships. She teaches poetry and creative writing to kids and beyond, and coordinates poetry programs for California Poets in the Schools.                         
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