Merging, Marriage, Masks, ‘Mpathy, ‘Merica

Where I live there are too many people. I’m not talking “things were so much better back in the day” too many. I am talking objectively, infrastructure-chokingly, whatever-metric-you-want-to-choose too many. My home town has grown rapidly, and so that infrastructure has not kept up, with the roads being the most obvious manifestation of this. Thus not only are the roads crowded but there is an unusual amount of road work, as our city tries to keep up with the growth, thus leading to even more congestion. And so people in cars frequently have to merge.

Yesterday, as I was creeping along at approximately one mph on an 80-mph highway (yes, 80 – hey, this is Texas), merging in order for us all to squeeze by some road repair, it struck me that merging is a metaphor for life. But first, let me talk a little more about actual merging in traffic.

I have seen public service announcements touting, indeed teaching, the “zipper merge.” If one should be so bored as to Google “merging” that person would find, on the first page of the results, several articles explaining the wondrousness of the zipper merge. In the well-named zipper merge two lanes of traffic collapse into one lane, with each lane contributing one car at a time. So, one car from the left lane, one from the right, one from the left, and so on. Well, if there are two, stuffed lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic, this makes some sense. But! However! If we are on the highway, and the traffic is not bumper-to-bumper, as soon as we see the “Right lane closed ahead” sign, if everyone scooted immediately over to the left lane, then we could all swoop on through the bottleneck at speed, or almost at speed. Are you following me, here? So, let’s say the traffic is just moderately heavy. We’re all cruising along at 70 mph. We see the damnable “Right lane closed ahead” sign. Well, if we all keep going in our respective lanes, at some point we all get to the final merge point, and we do that 1-mph zipper merge. However, if we all, soon as we saw the sign, put on our turn signal and scooted over to the left lane, then we’d all zoom right through that bottleneck at about 60 mph, with no need for the damn zipper.

So. Why don’t we do this? Why do presumably literate people buzz past this sign, keep going 70 mph in the right-hand lane, only to have to grind to a halt to do the 1-mph zipper merge? Don’t they realize that if they did it my way they’d get where they’re going faster? Is it the case (as I am starting to believe) that if I DID scoot over to the left lane immediately, still there’d be so many selfish phuckers passing me on the right that in the long run, I’d end up losing ground, in the these-days-certain-to-happen zipper merge?

So, naturally, the zipper merge leads me to a discussion of marriage. In any household there are many tasks to be done. When our marriage is working smoothly we merge at speed — I hate this task, you hate that task – I’ll do that one you do this one. Yay. Occasionally we must do the zipper merge – “Oh gawd, time to go down to the DMV to have our license plate updated? Nooooo. It’s your turn.” “No, it’s your turn.” We both hate that job, so, OK, “first jump ball.” (It’s a basketball term – about taking turns.) I’ll do it this time, you do it next time.

And so likewise with masks. I don’t like wearing a mask. Hell, I don’t much like wearing clothes. But I do it to protect “the other.” I am vaccinatedAF. The data suggest I am good. Almost all the deaths and severe cases are the unvaccinated. So why would I still wear a mask, and suffer the glares of all these Texas libertines who are free, free goddam it, and will NOT have the guvmint tell them what to do? Well, it is because I wish not to infect others. I might have some rogue, but ineffectual in me (thank you Pfizer) covid molecules floating around in my lungs. So, I withstand the slight discomfort, I withstand the longer litany as I leave the house, patting my pockets as I go (“Keys, wallet, phone, sunglasses . . . and mask”), I withstand those insipid glares, because, you know, society. I stop at red lights. I don’t litter. I buckle my seat belt and I put my tray-table up when told. Though I have no school-age kids I pay school taxes joyfully because I’d rather share the world with fewer dumb people. I get benefits others provide (as a senior citizen my property taxes are frozen where they are – thanks y’all — and one time that guy in a big effin’ truck let me in when I had not realized I was in a right-turn-only lane!). So. Society. If you don’t want constraints imposed by living in a society go move to a double-wide someplace with no restrictions, let your fucking dogs run loose and bark their fool heads off all day and all night long, put that old refrigerator that you just KNOW someone is gonna pay you good money for someday wherever the fuck you want. Maybe out by the mailbox. But when you gotta come into town, to see a doctor, or to buy more ammo, realize there are other people – some of them don’t look like you, nor worship the same god as you, nor drive at the same speed as you, but, guess what. They are likely trying to get to the doctor, too. And though they certainly are not as important as you, and certainly not in as big a hurry as you, given that you have to share this urban space with them it will be lovely if you’ll just compromise some of the time. You get first jump ball, but not the next one.

So, in a society I think it is all about “the other.” In my should-be-humbler opinion, we are all too selfish. America, freedoms, yeah, but . . . not at the expense of OTHERS’ freedoms.

I think it all comes down to ‘mpathy. Empathy, “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” Another. The other. Ya know, it is not all about you. I believe strongly that we are suffering from a serious empathy deficit in our country. You know, ‘Merica – land of the free, home of the brave, and we got our freedoms. But as someone once said, “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.” And one might expand that now to include your right to expire your possibly virus-laden air ends where my nose begins.

Then-President Donald Trump is said to have finally gotten serious about Covid once one of his friends died. Of course, I have no idea if this is true. But here’s a quote from an April 20, 2020, Washington Post article titled “They weren’t close, but New Yorker’s death from covid-19 hit Trump hard”: “At a news briefing on March 30, Trump said: ‘I have some friends that are unbelievably sick. We thought they were going in for a mild stay. And, in one case, he’s unconscious — in a coma. And you say, “How did that happen?”’”

The US Supreme Court is now considering a case where a coach may or may not have browbeat his players into saying Christian prayers at football games. It is not the Constitution, nor deist Thomas Jefferson, nor the myth of ONE homogeneous set of “Christian values” that steers me against this notion of a single, governmentally-endorsed religion. It is, and has long been, the eighth-grade kid, Mohammed. His parents are Muslim, and so he guesses he is, too. Good kid. Life-long American. Loves his country. Can name every starter on the Dallas Cowboys and knows all the words to Ariana Grande’s latest ditty. And get this good news – Mohammed is the starting tight end on his public middle school’s football team. He was so proud to make the team. But before and after every game, and maybe again when someone gets hurt, Coach Smith asks all the boys to “take a knee” and pray to Jesus Christ. So, what is Mohammed to do? He has to either just go-along-to-get-along, and pretend to go along (note, being untrue to his family’s beliefs), or go stand off to the side and, oh middle-school horror of horrors, be “different.” (And maybe earn himself less playing time.) Why do we do this to Mohammed? Why is this OK? Because the coach is a Christian? (What if the coach was . . . oh, you see where that’s going.) Because most of us are Christian? Well, most of us are right-handed and we don’t demand that your quarterback be right-handed. I mean, if you are paying to send your kid to a Christian school, take all the knees you want. Hell, put on a hair shirt and prostrate yourself for all I care. But if this is a public school, Mohammed’s parents (who, by the way, are life-long Americans, too) pay as much in school taxes as you. How about we just bow our heads and have a moment of silence? Pray to Jesus, pray to Allah, balance your checkbook in your head. I don’t care. And neither should you.

Phucking America. We have taken this “freedoms” bit too far. Higher education and science are under attack because, you know, the First Amendment (which, by the by, does NOT afford you the right to say any damn thing you want!). Everyone can have an opinion. You can be a lazy, uneducated dolt and still you are welcome to your opinion. Absolutely. But a) that does not mean it is as “good” as all other opinions (no, the world is not flat), and b) that does not mean it is a good idea for you to go onto The Jerry Springer Show, or into your local school board meeting, and insist that everyone else share that opinion.

No. Empathy. The other. Have you ever had cancer? I haven’t. I cannot imagine. But I’m not gonna tell someone who has cancer how he/she/they should think or act. You ever been a Catholic? Left-handed? Taller than average? A woman? Questioning as to your gender? Answer me this – how many minorities are you in? Are you a US male? (Minority.) Blond-headed? A Capricorn? A Lutheran? A single dad? Ya know what – you are in a LOT of minorities! So, how ‘bout the rest of them? How ‘bout you cut them some slack? “Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.” Well, maybe right NOW you don’t think of yourself as “the other.” Maybe your political party is in power, and your race and gender allow you to walk down almost any street with no fear of arrest or discrimination. But will that always be the case? And how about your loved ones, or, like President Trump, your good friend? Wouldn’t you hate it if your niece got discriminated against?

So, lighten the hell up. Manufacture some dang humility. Yeah, the world would likely be better if it ran just exactly like you wanted it to – you and all the other blond, left-handed, cis-gendered Lutheran Capricorns. But it’s not gonna. Our country – the land of the free and the home of the brave – is a dang melting pot. People from all the hell over. So deal with it. Merge. Lighten up. Realize that there may well come a time when you’re in the minority (are you White and in Texas? Hold on!), and…won’t you hope that whoever is in the majority will treat you with respect and love?

In your near future, the right lane shall be “closed ahead.” I don’t know what it will be. Maybe your tax rates will go up. Maybe your ailing grandfather will beg for euthanasia but it won’t be legal in your state. Maybe you’ll want to read a book that has been banned in your community. Maybe your niece will be raped and wish to have an abortion. (I pray not.) But for now, in anticipation of that, merge. Perform your family’s most distasteful chores half the time (maybe 51% of the time). Wear a damn mask. And try to have a little dang empathy for “the other.” Someday you’ll hope others merge with you.

Mohammed. You’d love that kid if you knew him.

^{Photo by Ben Hershey on Unsplash}