Over And Over

 How about this: Do-over.

I'm an elementary school teacher. The do-over is an integral part of any day that needs less confrontation. Rather than stand in the middle of a playground, hands on hips and chests thrust out arguing the finer points of four square and your mama. How about we have a do-over, and just move on? 

Easy. Unless there are those who are prone to getting mired in the do-over process so there never is any resolution, just endless do-overs because the solution is never satisfactory to both parties. 

But what if there was a way to go back in time and have a do-over on this whole COVID-19 thing? Last March if there had been a shutdown of the entire country and masks had been worn by everyone for three months, a hundred days, a time period prescribed by science, maybe there wouldn't have been a year of heartache and embarrassment. States were left to fend for themselves and make their own regulations which caused neighbors to look across the border and wonder why they had to wear masks when their friends in Montucky were going without. 

And what if the geniuses who made loud proclamations about the hoax of a pandemic were not amplified by other geniuses who only served as a hollow tube through which sound could be made louder? How many thousands of lives could have been saved? Should have been saved? Instead, we did everything we could to cling to the notion of "normal" even as things turned to abnormal in just a matter of days. If every government official who scoffed at the idea of an extinction type event was required to sit with the families of the victims of this disease, maybe there wouldn't be a need to argue about it. 

Do-over.

Go back to the beginning. Assigning blame was first on the tiny minds of those in charge back then. If that energy had been channeled into protection and cures, we might not be staring at a second, third, or fourth wave. The greedheads who insisted on keeping the economy moving in spite of the human cost could go somewhere and count their money for a few months while the rest of the planet got themselves out of the way of the virus. 

What if schools remained closed until they could be used as something other than experimental daycare stations so that "essential business" could take place? What if nobody had to go out until it was safe? This includes motorcycle rallies and holiday trips to grandma's house. 

It could have been different. 

It should have been different.

I want a do-over.