Return to Normalcy?

Ben Sears

Ben Sears is a writer and restaurant guy in Birmingham, Alabama. He lives quite happily across from a creek with his wife, two sons, and an obligatory dog. You can follow him on Twitter and read his blog, The Columbo Game.

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17 Responses

  1. Damon says:

    What I’ll remember is this: “We’ve been told over the past two years that “We’re all in this together,” as we are told to stay apart.” and yet, how many instances did we see of “important people” not doing exactly that? Dozens I can recall. Politicians having unmasked parties, celebs the same. Oh, the staff might be masked, but not the glitterati. I think a lot of people are going to remember this….for a long time. I will.Report

  2. fillyjonk says:

    “we’re all in this together” needs to be HEAVILY asterisked.

    there’s a huge difference between Ellen Degeneres’ experience (she who famously, tin-earedly, complained that her 4000 or so square foot house was “like a prison”) and some single mom who’s trying to work AND supervise her kids’ online schooling from a 2 bedroom apartment. In many ways I suffered less than most, but for me it was 2 years of almost total isolation – live alone, don’t have a lot of local friends I felt I could ask to “bubble” with me. Also I have a SMALL house and had to try to teach class from a tiny corner of my living room. There are still things I doubt I will ever do again (go to a movie in a theater, for example)

    I would also like to see “in these unprecedented times” expunged from the common vocabulary; have times EVER been “precedented”? I mean, yes, I would like to live in less-stressful and less-unpredictable times, but….the times, they have always been unprecedented.Report

    • Kazzy in reply to fillyjonk says:

      The saying is, “We’re all in the same boat.”

      But we’re not. We may all be in the same storm but some of us are in an inner tube and some of us are on a super yacht.Report

  3. InMD says:

    I am straining to remember what it was for but there was some commercial I’d hear frequently in summer 2020 that would end with ‘during these, important times.’ Every time I heard it I could picture the corporate conference room of marketing execs trying to navigate the feeling that they had to say something but avoid appearing to endorse anything in particular. It was hilarious and awful all at once.Report

  4. Saul Degraw says:

    I suppose the issue for me is who gets to decide what is not what is not a return to normalcy.Report

  5. Saul Degraw says:

    Here is what I hope is a non-controversial example of who the issues of defining normalcy. In the before times, depositions used to be conducted in person. All the counsel, the deponent, and a court reporter would be around a table in a conference room. A lot of these went zoom during COVID. Some lawyers really like it, some do not. I think there are pros and cons to zoom depositions vs. real life ones.

    I have a case where there are two defendants. I represent one. I called counsel for the other defendant and suggested we depose the plaintiff in person because I think she is exaggerating injuries and it is kind of easy to mask this on zoom. Co-counsel told me that he was not vaccinated and was immunocompromised.

    I might be wrong but I would not be surprised if he was not consistent with this line. Does he tell friends that he can’t go out for whatever because of his status? Probably not. But going forward there are going to be all sorts of negotiations and explanations for these issues.Report