E L Bloomfield
I can’t wear a mask – well, I can, but after about five minutes of breathing in my own filth, my atrophied, pneumonia prone lungs become angry. I end up ripping the damn thing off, gasping for air in front of perplexed people and trying to hide the fact that I’ve wet my pants. It makes me feel like I’m being suffocated.
So I wrote an email explaining this and I have been provided with a medical exemption which means I don’t have to wear a mask. I don’t have to wear a mask in the supermarket, I don’t have to wear a mask in the gas station, I don’t have to wear a mask in the toilet, I don’t have to wear a mask and I have a card to prove it. Whew!
I’ve been upfront about this with my employer and they accommodated me, right until yesterday when they announced that everyone has to wear a mask. I said, “Hang on, even though we’re at Level Two, there are no cases of Covid in the South Island, and we’re all double-shot vaccinated, everyone now has to wear a mask?”
“Yes.”
“But I have an exemption. I don’t have to wear a mask.”
“Not so fast sunshine.”
I played my part in lockdown one and two by staying home, I got my double shot vaccine, I used hand sanitiser so much my hands grew fish scales, I used a cattle prod at the supermarket to keep people two metres away from me.
Basically, everything the government told me to do so we could get our freedom back, I did, except for this one thing.
I have a sneaking suspicion we’re never going to get our freedom back. We are all now living in a sort of limbo where the minute a single case shows up, we are in home detention again. “Govern us harder Aunty, govern us harder!” you all shout.
I will not beg to be governed harder like some pervert cricket umpire who gleefully accepts that he’s being thrown over the Huka Falls in a bag and is paying for the pleasure of it.
I will not be suffocated. I will not be punished.