Blockade Runners

[aggienaut]

   16 days until catastrophic visa failure.


   I feel like people here went through about three stages so far as far as general feelings about lockdown. In Stage 1 everyone was terrified, it was new and crazy and scary. In stage 2, after about a month people started geting tired of the masks and restrictions. They eagerly looked forwar to this being over. They talked about it being over constantly. Then they eased up restrictions, too soon as it turns out, and we got the second bigger surge. Now we're in a third stage, acceptance. Not of death like certain American politicians, but that this is not going away. We automatically put on masks before we go out in public, we don't notice everyone else wearing masks. After shopping for half an hour in the grocery store the other day I asked myself "is everyone still wearing masks?" and I had to look around, and, yes, everyone was wearing masks. But It hadn't even registered until I thought to look. Books and movies that show pre-pandemic life of people casually mingling in public seems cringingly weird now.
   The local grocery store still has signs on smoe shelves that say rationing of certain products is still en effect, which still strikes me as a bit surreal.

   Today I had to drive to Melbourne again to deliver some honey. Melbourne is still a locked-down area, which means I need a travel permit issued by my employer to get through the checkpoints back out of Melbourne, or face a $6,000 fine. Because of the nature of my job, I can issue myself the permit, so I downloaded the template from the government website, filled in the requisite information, and signed it twice, as the employer and employee. But then, a bit worried that the police/military manning the checkpoint would be suspicious of my self-signature, I printed a second honey invoice for the receiver to sign, so I'd have a signed delivery receipt to prove I'd just delivered honey. And then for added measure I tossed my fire brigade hat in the passenger seat so the authorities might look on me more favorably.

   At the checkpoint, there's a sign that says "cars: left" and "trucks: right." There's much more traffic on the car side, and I noticed plenty of personal cars zipping into the truck side. I hope they're not getting away with that I grumbled to myself.
   They run the checkpoint like a DUI checkpoint (indeed they use their DUI charterbus for whatever tehy use it for at checkpoints), sending about ten cars at a time into a side lane to be checked and letting the others go while they do that. Two of the past three times I've been through here I've actually just been waved through. This time as I approached I saw they were waving cars into the inspection lane, dang, guess I wouldn't shoot on through this time. Then I realized that in fact officers had just walked into the "truck only" lane and were waving all the non-trucks from that lane into the inspection cue! I cackled with glee at them not getting away with it. And then I was waved through without being inspected myself.

Comments

[scream-queen.livejournal.com]

I guess we're mostly in the stage 3 you describe as well, though there are some people who seem to act like things are more or less back to normal and they don't need to take precautions any more.

It does seem totally normal now to see everyone in masks. A couple of times I've seen people in shops without them and it's quite shocking, like seeing someone walk around half naked!

[viagra.livejournal.com]

I love poetic justice. Nothing drives me crazier than people thinking that they are more special than everyone else. It's like they think everyone else is just out for a pleasure drive with nowhere to go and they're the only ones that are actually going someplace. Or I guess they might be thinking, "How clever I am to bypass that line; can't believe no one else thought of that!"

I was watching American Idol last night because it randomly started playing on Hulu, and because that was from back in March, everyone was gathering together in large groups and no one was wearing masks or keeping their distance and it struck me how bizarre that seemed to me now, and further how bizarre it was that that seemed bizarre.

[chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com]

cars left and trucks right? what if you've got a motorcycle? or a Ranchero?

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Haha I think it literally said "cars" and "trucks" but it's understood to mean personal vehicles on the left and large commercial vehicles (I think they call them "prime movers" here?) on the right. (:

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

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[wpadmirer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think this is the new reality for all of us, but Trumpers are not accepting it. It's getting ugly here.

[interes2012.livejournal.com]

hold on, man
(https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/interes2012/25717847/1209339/1209339_original.jpg)