A sociopathic Christmas?

At the Fred Meyer North Division and Hastings store this evening (Dec. 22) I helped a woman with her late-teens daughter find an open self-checkout kiosk. The mother thanked me. I responded – maybe unwisely – that I’d have liked to them for wearing masks (both were maskless). Finishing her checkout before I finished mine, the mother bluntly upbraided me while leaving, “You should stop worrying about other people.”

It occurred to me seconds later her remark, essentially, defines sociopathic thought: not caring what happens to other people.

Noticing approximately half of Fred Meyer customers – as well as a similar ratio in Costco’s nearby store minutes later – were maskless, it occurred to me that perhaps 50 percent of those in our corner of the Evergreen State may be fixated on that same kind of sociopathic thought process. And business owners in our area likewise appear comfortable barely giving lip service, if even that, to our governor’s indoor public area masking mandate.

Considering that the current season is supposed to be all about caring for others, the antithesis of selfishness, tone-deaf attitudes among anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers, tragically, don’t seem to bode well for our species’ survival, not to mention its peaceful co-existence.

Rob Ethington

Spokane