I am going to do some more musing here, mostly because I express myself so much better in print. In person, I trip over my own words.
I am ok with the decisions being made right now. People who know more than me are using the best information we have for this new ‘normal’ we are experiencing. One of the reasons is because of the small-ish disasters I’ve dealt with: bat bugs and lice.
With the bat bugs, the first time was a train wreck of fear (thinking they were bed bugs) and panic. It sucked weeks of work from my life and years of sanity. People mock me for checking hotel rooms, but they haven’t walked a mile in my bug-infested shoes. The second round there was less panic, but plenty of despondency. I will be dealing with this issue until I move out of my home.
With the lice, I was working with adults who had no clue about the facts. One of my co-workers thought they could fly,; plenty of parents had a “I don’t need to worry about it” attitude (and then it became my problem), and the mother of one child who had them knew that she had them, “But they’re just on the one side of her head, right? We’re treating that.” Um, what?
WHAT?
You have to treat the whole head. You have to check the whole family. You have to wash your bedding more than once. (“I washed everything. They can’t live more than a day off your head.”} You have to keep checking. You don’t panic, but you do what you have to do until you are sure that the lice are gone. Then, you periodically check in to be sure that they don’t return.
Right now, the world has become a head with lice. We don’t need to panic, but we should be responsible and do our part. Wash your hands. Stay home if you’re sick. Don’t panic buy everything but be smart and have what you might need for a while. Take care of your neighbors. Pray for people who are sick and those making decisions. If it looks like we overreacted, then that’s the best possible outcome.