Month: November 2020

(In the voice of Sofia from the Golden Girls)— Picture it, North St. Louis, 2015. It seemed like a normal day at the St. Louis P&G Plant—lots of fires to put out, lots of rushing around, personnel issues to deal with, line mechanical issues to fix—the norm. On that particular day, I was 5 months preggo & feeling some serious morning sickness. I hadn’t had this level of queasiness in a couple months, so I was struggling with functioning at work. But, since it was so hectic and stressful, I just kept “willing down“ the need to puke all morning.

Around noon, my husband (whom I almost never saw at work) walked up to me and asked me how I was feeling. This was unusual… well, because he never asks me feeling-questions like this. I tell him I’m fine, and ask him why he’s asking me. He tells me how he’s puked twice already at work, and suspects that he’s gotten a bug from our germy toddler. I then realize that my nauseousness is also probably connected to this same bug, and rush to the bathroom for some unpleasantries. Once I cleaned myself up, I tell my husband we need to leave and to meet me at the car ASAP.

We leave the plant within minutes, both of us looking green, and neither of us being able to hold our heads up straight. Just before getting on 270 I yell, “PULL OVER!!!” As he pulls onto the shoulder we both open our doors and projectile vomit out of both sides of the car. Can you imagine the visual we made there? Too bad we didn’t get to make a video for TikTok with that one! Anywho, we made it home, and he immediately took some Pepto and slept peacefully for the next 24 hours. I, on the other hand, was pregnant and therefore couldn’t take Pepto… so I continued to puke my brains out for the rest of the day. I’m a cryer-puker, so I was just physically and emotionally drained. Then, as if the non-stop-crying-puking wasn’t enough, this horrific illness kicked my body into contractions. Of course then I was even more stressed and sick and drained.

At some point after midnight I fell asleep with puke-covered clothes, puke-breath, puke stuck in my sweaty hair, which was of course stuck to my face.

It was horrible.

Horrific.

My body was sore for 48 hours afterwards.

I wouldn’t wish a strong stomach bug/flu on my worst enemy.

But… we all expect illness.

We all expect germs.

We all expect death.

Or so I thought.

Until 2020. 

Until COVID.

Even with the horrendous symptoms I survived that day, I would never suggest locking down our country to protect folks from it. I am having the hardest time understanding why any human thinks this could possibly be the correct path in life—-locking down the world.

I hear friends and family argue with my points, by stating “This is for the common good, just wear a mask and stay home. This is something we can control. Something we can do for the greater good. Stay Home, Save Lives.”

Well, my question back to you all is, if the logic on lockdowns is—“This is a bad virus, and we want to keep people safe”—then where do we draw the line on freedom restrictions of grown-arse adults capable of making decisions on their own.

I mean, driving isn’t safe; we have 38,000 deaths per year—-so do we stop driving? Get rid of everyone’s cars, licenses, ability to personally transport themselves around.

Drinking isn’t safe; we have 95,000 deaths per year—do we outlaw drinking? Time to kick back up the times of prohibition? Sounds fun, right?

Smoking isn’t safe; we have 480,000 deaths per year —-do we outlaw smoking? I personally am not a fan of smoking, but are we ready as a community to start handing out misdemeanors for lighting one up? This number of deaths is almost double the COVID deaths per year, so how can we just continue to allow people to CHOOSE to smoke?

Abortions are our intentional decision to end life, and we do that 621,000 each year? Any concerns here, or do these not count as deaths? Just trying to follow the rationale here.

To further my point, I did a little research on the CDC website. Below are the number of annual deaths for leading causes of death in the US:

• Heart disease: 655,381

• Cancer: 599,274

• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 167,127

• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 159,486

• Stroke: 147,810

• Alzheimer’s disease: 122,019

• Diabetes: 84,946

• Influenza and Pneumonia: 59,120

• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis: 51,386

• Intentional self-harm (suicide): 48,344

So let’s just analyze a few of these common death causes.

The most common death cause is heart disease, and the most common causes of heart disease are unhealthy diet, lack of exercise, being overweight, and smoking. So, with the logic of “for the better good, we must keep people safe”, we should:

• Require anyone that is obese to get on a weight management plan.

• Have a mandatory daily exercise requirement.

• Ban fast food. I mean, if we didn’t have it, people wouldn’t eat it right?

• Make smoking illegal, for sure.

• We can control these actions, so shouldn’t we?

• This is life and death after all, right?

The 2nd most common death cause is cancer, and the most common causes of cancer is tobacco use. So, with the logic of “for the better good, we must keep people safe”, we should:

• Again, make smoking illegal, for sure.

• This is life and death after all, right?

The 4th most common death cause is chronic lower respiratory disease, and the most common cause of chronic lower respiratory disease is tobacco use. So, with the logic of “for the better good, we must keep people safe”, we should:

• Yup, I said it before, and I’ll say it again, make smoking illegal, for sure.

• This is life and death after all, right?

• Ain’t looking too good for the tobacco farmers, is it?

For the 5th and 7th most common death causes (stroke and diabetes), the most common causes include obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, smoking. So, with the logic of “for the better good, we must keep people safe”, we should:

• Get rid of all foods that cause high cholesterol.

• Require anyone that is obese to get on a weight management plan.

• Have a mandatory daily exercise requirement.

• Ban fast food. I mean, if we didn’t have it, people wouldn’t eat it right?

• Make smoking illegal, for sure.

• This is life and death after all, right?

• I gotta tell you, I am getting pretty excited to start up my “Lindsey Daily Fitness Livestream Group” with all these mandated restrictions.

I think you might be getting my point, but let’s hit Alzheimer’s and Suicide while we are here. Alzheimer deaths are most commonly affected by age—- so what should we do for 65 year olds? Your risk is so much higher at that age? Not sure where to start there? Corral all the 65 years olds into a nice fenced in area in case they “Catch It” and need to be protected? And suicide… most commonly caused by depression…to ensure no depressed person makes this choice, instead of handing out Lexapro to every overworked and underappreciated mom out there, maybe instead we should put every depressed person in the US in a nice, padded room? Ummmm, I think we’re gonna need a bigger boat…. er, room.

I can live without smoking, drinking, fatty foods, stress, etc., but is that really living. Sounds like a living hell. Similar to what we are doing today. We are locking down the world. We are locking down our children. We are locking down our businesses and our neighbor’s businesses. We are locking down our lives. Almost like we have forgotten that life is short, and any day could be our last. I don’t want to live a life without vices, and I don’t want to live a life trapped in a bubble, in a mask, in the 4-walls of my home. And I won’t.

Now, before all you folks that have been affected by COVID jump my ass, I get that COVID can suck… I get that it can be dangerous. That is not my point. My point isn’t that COVID is not dangerous, my point is everything in life can be dangerous and we should be able to make our own choices on how to safely navigate those risks. Not through government-mandates.

We are being led by fear, and the scariest part to me is how many people out there are begging for these restrictions.

Let me close with this question for my restriction-loving friends: how do you prioritize what types of deaths are important enough to restrict our freedoms? Automobile? Alcohol? Obesity-related? Domestic Violence? Cancer? Suicide?

Because right now, I’m really struggling to understand your rationale.

She nonchalantly leans against her long, sleek convertible. One hand in her pocket, one casually up at her lips as she takes a slow drag on her extra-long cigarette. Clearly dressed to the hilt, she stands tall with her legs crossed at her ankles so that the toe of one of her stilettos is just barely touching the ground. Her bright headscarf protects her hair, while her white cat-eye sunglasses are covering up her intense glare. As she sets her sights in on her enemy, she drops her cigarette, and puts it out with her fancy shoe by stepping & twisting on it. She takes off her scarf, throws it in her car, and struts off toward her nemesis like a super model, ready for a fashionable & yet feisty confrontation.

She is our old-school rebel.

Cool, calm, collected, & always ready for battle.

When I think of the word rebel, I picture James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause, or Patrick Swayze & Tom Cruise in the Outsiders. Or what about Rizzo in Grease? I even group in more recent movies like Braveheart and Pretty Woman, with different variations of seriousness & different variations of the word rebel. The common thread in all of these movies is the understanding that these characters would stand up to society’s norms and choose to find their own path.

Much to my parents’ dismay, I grew up digging rebels. The cookie-cutter guy, straight out of the book of yuppies, never did it for me. I was always attracted to the long-hair wild child, but my true Achilles’ heel was if that wild child was crazy smart and driven. I just love the idea of someone’s insides not matching their outside. Something interesting, something unexpected. And above all else, something or someone brave.

I like to think that I was a titch of a rebel growing up. On the outside, I was a blonde goody-two-shoes, Pommie/dancer, math club nerd, track athlete, show choir junkie, straight A kiddo. But on the inside, I was a bit of wild child with my pals on the weekends and most importantly I also stood up to authority when I felt like it was needed. For example:

• My parents can attest to the written letters of explanations & emotional arguments on when I felt like they had overstepped their bounds on controlling who I could date. My father in particular loved these conversations.

• My female show choir leader once told us that any female in our choir group had to get approval to drastically cut or alter their long hair, as we should all look feminine on stage—next week I walked in with a short skater haircut.

• Countless times in life I have found myself witness to my family members being treated unfairly or poorly, and my scrwany-arse would get nose-to-nose with the gnarliest of perpetrators without a second thought.

• Oh, and in the military, there are all sorts of rules about who you can date, when you should date, where you can date…. I proudly gave my middle finger to those rules, as well.

• Bottom line— I wanted the world to know I am someone who will work my arse off to be a productive person in society, but I won’t be controlled… especially by rules that don’t make sense.

So, fast forward to 2020.

My rebel-side is in full swing.

I won’t conform to societal norms… especially the norms that don’t make sense.

I will never NOT be an American Patriot, despite the recent trends of implying patriots are racist. 

I will never NOT support our POTUS, despite emotional leftists claiming he is (and therefore I am) every “ist” in the book. Sidebar note for my non-Trump-loving friends: For every article, quote, etc. you have “proving” Trump is a “whatever”, I have fact-checking data that supports the opposite. I do not believe Trump is a racist, homophobic, white supremist, or any of the other accusations that you hear flying from the self-righteous left. Most importantly, I (and the majority of Trump supporters I know) would never vote for someone we thought was any of those things. That’s what I think you’re missing. In your mind you have already committed Trump to being all of those things, therefore, whomever supports him must support those things. Never mind that immediately upon taking office Trump declared his support for LBTGQ (something that took Obama until his second term). Never mind that despite all the left’s accusations of white supremacy Trump has been on video something around 280+ times denouncing it and all forms of bigotry. Never mind the “Platinum plan” that Trump has laid out with the assistance of influencers from the black community which will invest $500 billion (with a B) into black communities over the next 4 years. I could keep going but hopefully you see the point. You know Trump to be X and I know that to be false. I’m not an “ist” nor an “ic”… and no over-emotional post/generalization will ever convince me otherwise. I respect all humans that are respectful to others. And by respecting others, I don’t mean requiring others to follow my exact beliefs.

But I digress.

I will never NOT believe that these lockdowns and mask-mandates are a complete farse. 

I believe there is a COVID virus, but I do not believe in lockdowns/masks. We are annihilating our immune systems by avoiding other humans. We are destroying the critical growth years of our young children. We are obliterating our economy. All of these things aren’t HAPPENING TO US… we are either allowing them to happen because we are remaining silent, or we are encouraging these things to happen…

And why are we? 

Because we are scared.

And people controlled by fear in my book are cowards, and I simply can’t relate.

There is no game plan here… because there will ALWAYS BE VIRUSES. Which implies, if we continue down this ridiculous path, we will stay locked down indefinitely. So parents of young children, when will enough be enough for you? Are you going to let your children grow up without recess? Without schoolyard buddies and learning all the intricate pieces of socially interacting with others? This could go on until they are in highschool? Will you let them miss K -12? At this rate, these are all possibilities. And this means that you as an adult will have to make a choice. Are you a duster or a burner? Meaning, are you someone who buys candles to just set them around and dust them? Or do you burn them? You will have to choose—-dust or burn. Live or wait to die locked away. Hurry up on your decision, the next virus is already on its way, I’m sure.

So, rewind to the beginning of this blog.

Picture this badass woman. Now replace her stylish outfit with an elementary school hoodie, with fresh food stains on it from her toddler’s sticky fingers. Replace her stilettos with worn out running shoes. And replace her cigarette with a big cup of coffee.

She’s mask-less. 

She’s strutting towards a poll.

Or her state representative.

Or her child’s school principal.

Or best yet, a Karen.

She fights for her freedom.

She fights against the ridiculousness of wearing masks & locking down.

She may be filled with fear, but she keeps marching on.

She won’t remain silent, even if her voice shakes. 

She won’t stand by silently while her world is controlled by fear.

She will be ridiculed. Replace the goody-two-shoes from Grease that make fun of Rizzo, or the uppity-snobs on Rodeo Drive unwilling to sell to Julia Roberts… these hecklers from old movies are called Karen’s in today’s society. They are our modern-day virtue-signalers, convinced their “holier-than-thou” lifestyles are the only righteous ways to live.

But still our fearless woman marches on.

As she grabs the door handle and shoves the door open, she whispers to herself, “You’ve fucked with the wrong momma.”

She’s our modern-day rebel.

Go get ‘em, ladies!

#beaburner #bealion