As Covid numbers surge once again, today Seattle and King County officials instituted a new local mask policy of feeling a small, nagging sense of shame wherever you go and whatever you do.
“I want to be very clear about this,” said King County Executive Dow Constantine at a press conference this afternoon. “In this continued time of crisis, we all need to look out for one another. And to do that, you need to accept that Brené Brown was wrong and you, yes you, should feel a deep sense of shame at all times—a sense that you have done something very wrong, maybe a long time ago, maybe yesterday … Admit it: Everyone can smell it on you when you walk by that last night you both ate inside an Ivar’s with no mask but then for some reason wore a mask through Amy Schumer’s entire standup set at the Paramount, cruelly muffling the sound of laughter she feeds on.”
Most business owners said the vague clarification about the vague sense of shame everyone should feel about whether they wear a mask or not is already helping.
“It’s important to us that everyone who walks in here goes ‘Uh oh. Ohhhh. Should I wear a—is everyone else? But should I follow what everyone else is? Um?” said Capitol Hill cafe owner Joseph Owens. “We want people asking themselves, when’s the last time I confidently made a decision? 2016? I voted for Jill Stein that year, so honestly, probably even farther back than that.”
Other local businesses have taken action by posting signs showing a figure with worried eyebrows holding a mask aloft, its arms raised in a gesture that clearly expresses, “I don’t know. Do you know? Because I just don’t know anymore.”
At press time, the CDC recommended people living under the new Seattle mask policy overshare too early into a friendship in an attempt to ease the shame just a bit.
