Nope, still not okay to slip over to your friends’ place for a barbecue and a few drinks, no matter how gorgeous the weather is

I see you people. I see you sneaking out of quarantine like a teenager breaking out of the bedroom window to go to a party at the moon tower. Word gets around, you know. I got a friend of a friend who threw a dinner party with multiple couples. I got another friend of another friend who’s sleeping around with multiple women he doesn’t live with, right now. I am routinely sympathetic to the eternally horny, but still. One guy I know had a neighbor throw a fucking party the other night. Another couple threw their kid a birthday party, with guests. Everybody either knows someone who’s bailing on quarantine or they ARE that someone.

I’m not talking about stubborn boomers here. And I’m not talking about all the MAGA clods staging LIBERATE rallies and holding each other by the genitals in a show of defiance against BIG GUBMINT. Those people were ALWAYS gonna be fucking hopeless. I’m not even talking about NYC parkgoers who are getting wrongly called out online for having the gall to go outside while, by all appearances, keeping to their own. No no no, I’m talking about the silent number of you dabbling in normalcy here and there, thinking it’s okay because you’re only indulging just a little bit and because you’re breaking quarantine with the RIGHT people. Why, Tina would never have Covid. She’s just not that kinda lady!

I see you all you people, and you’re fucking us.

I understand the temptation. I’m just as bored and hopeless as you are. I would very much like to get the fuck out of my house and go eat a burger on a restaurant patio somewhere. The siren song has grown even louder as more time has passed and the weather has turned friendlier. And what if you live somewhere cramped? And you live alone? I get it. Keeping an even keel is nigh impossible under those circumstances. The temptation is more pronounced because normalcy seems just within reach right now, particularly given that countries like Germany and South Korea — countries that, you know, have their shit together — are slowly opening back up. Korean baseball is back. German soccer league Bundesliga just got the go-ahead from Angela Merkel to resume their season 10 days from now. And if other countries can get back to life unshackled, why can’t we?

There’s no evidence whatsoever that any of these moves are responsible, just as there’s no evidence that it’s okay for you to go over to your friend Maddie’s house for a glass of rosé and a game of Pictionary.

We can’t because we’re fucking stupid. But that’ll never stop Americans from PRETENDING they’ve got this shit handled. To that end, a great many citizens, officials, and industrial leaders would prefer that we act as if it’s just groovy for us to get things going again, even though we do not have the virus tamed, and even though we’ve barely taken the right steps to tame it while we’re all rotting inside. In fact, the coronavirus has already killed more Americans than the number of Americans who died in World War I. And it’s not even Germany’s fault this time! INCREDIBLE.

The NFL is releasing its schedule on Thursday as if its season isn’t in any danger whatsoever. Virginia, which doesn’t even have a Republican as its governor, wants to pull a Georgia and open up restaurants and salons again. Always with the goddamn salons. Ocean City, Maryland, is reopening its beaches on SATURDAY, with out-of-state tourists welcome. The DNC chair still wants to hold his party’s convention in person. There’s no evidence whatsoever that any of these moves are responsible, just as there’s no evidence that it’s okay for you to go over to your friend Maddie’s house for a glass of rosé and a game of Pictionary. But when Roger Goodell acts like nothing is wrong (I watched the whole NFL draft last month and not once did I hear anyone on camera discuss the season being in danger, almost as if they were ordered not to mention the possibility), some of you feel entitled to act the same way.

I’m barely hanging on here. Every time I hear news that something is “opening” again, I have to wrestle my own heart back down. The beach? I can go to the beach? I can maybe watch football again? There could be restaurants in my near future? PLEASE GOD LET IT HAPPEN. My kingdom for a trip to the fucking bowling alley. But I can’t. I gotta stay here and ride it out, and I know I can pull it off if I just slog through one day at a time. But it gets draining knowing that slog will only get longer the more often some of you pieces of shit have a bachelor party on the sly.

I’ve had one family member break quarantine, but it was for medical reasons. If you, like, break your arm, I think you have an excuse to venture out of the house. Really needing to hang with Dave is NOT an equal excuse.

But some of you are using that excuse anyway. You think the rules don’t apply to you, because that’s the American ethos, and because we don’t have a federal government in place right now to tell you otherwise.

All you assholes had to do was stay home. It was such a simple request. Shit, I stayed home most nights even when there WASN’T a virus being passed around. We all got one job, and some of you — and I’m talking about those of you who have not been ordered outside by a tyrannical boss or those of you who do not have to work at a hospital because duty calls — think you’re too clever for the virus to catch you. You are not. You ain’t special, and you ain’t bulletproof. And if you don’t believe me, well then you’ll believe it coming from the virus itself when it’s eating you alive from the inside out.