Fresh from our discriminatory covid-19 vaccine mandate run-in at Best & Less, followed by a hassle-free nip into Cargo Depot to purchase a $1 ceramic red bus in total freedom, my pure blood family moved across to the covid-safe cushioned lounge chairs of Macarthur Square.
My wife Ria sat down.
I could see her green underwear. I didn’t want her to get checked out by the two other masked-up males each seated on either chair to our left and to our right.
When she noticed I had noticed, she subtly crossed her legs.
Then she said, “I bought chips. I’ll feed them to Lincoln.”
“Alright. I’m going to go look for some sushi to eat. I’ll be back in about ten minutes.”
Uncloaking The Pure Blood Camouflage
On the stroll downstairs towards Gloria Jeans, I became conscious of how I shared the mall with a number of COVID-19 vaccine mandate compliant businesses-cum-rookie-fascists.
“Fuck it! I’m going to take my face mask off,” I decided.
At Gloria Jeans, I ordered a takeaway iced latte for Ria and a large cappuccino for myself.
I got a few looks while I did that.
I came around to the small takeaway counter to the side, worming my way through to be socially distanced behind three masked-up ladies standing in the queue.
I was this flaming-blonde haired unvaccinated male pure blood with no face mask on, looking like a vicious dog that’s about to growl. One lip was curled up. You could see a sharp tooth. That was me. But I didn’t bite.
To heighten the tension, I saw a security guard in my peripheral vision. I pretended like I didn’t notice him coming my way. I avoided eye contact. The security guard swooped close down the hallway, and behind my socially-distanced queue that extended out the back of the coffee shop into the hallway.
I feared we were going to have a stand-off over face masks. But he walked on by.
Tension turned to relief. I thought in my mind, “You are allowed to have an exemption, but for privacy reasons, you don’t have to tell them why you have a face mask exemption for COVID-19.”
So if someone came up and asked me, “Why are you not wearing a face mask?” I can just tell them I have an exemption.
I do have ‘schizophrenia’ written down on my medical record. It was a medical misdiagnosis of an anxious teen from decades ago that was never corrected. I could use that as a defense.
If you piss someone off that has schizophrenia, expect them to snap in your face.
Not longer after those thoughts ran through my mind, the security guard showed up to stand on the opposite side of the Gloria Jeans service counter.
At the time, it looked like he was scoping me out.
Paranoid, I began to think he might be waiting for more security to come so that they could bust the unvaccinated pure blood troublemaker for not wearing a face mask.
But when I picked the coffees up and headed up the escalators, I turned around to see that the security guards were cordoning off a spill.
There would be no COVID-19 vaccine mandate showdown today.
Pure Bloods Going Toy Shopping
I walked around Macarthur Square for a good half an hour without my face mask off.
Ria met up with me.
We walked towards Big W looking for our car.
When we came as far as Toy Mate, I realized we might have made a mistake.
“Hang on. I think we are going the wrong way. Our car is towards Coles.”
Toy Mate had COVID-19 vaccine certificate QR code signage prominently placed at the entrance. I winced at the notion that my unvaccinated family would be refused entry twice today for failure to show a COVID-19 vaccine passport, but the temptation of new toys for Lincoln was too high.
I donned my face mask. I reasoned that when I enter a shop, I will wear a face mask. But when I’m walking through an empty mall with lots of empty space, I don’t need to put a face mask on.”
The entrance to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate compliant toy store was unmanned. I snaked in, followed by Ria and Lincoln behind me.
Soon, a girl approached from in the middle of the empty toy store and asked, “Did you sign in?”
I looked at the teen and told her, “Yeah. We already did that.”
That’s all she could say. We didn’t actually sign in.
I should have told her, “I signed in with my diary, Diary of a Mad Chaos. You can check my sign in status on www.eleninovski.com. It has twenty five years worth of my check-in statuses.”
As we proceeded in, we had this cagey exchange of looks as if she was channeling, “I have to ask you for your vaccine certificate, but I don’t want to ask because I’m intimidated. So I’m hoping that somehow, magically you will just show your vaccine passport to me.”
From her nervous dithering, I could tell she was thinking, “I’m going to have to ask now. I’ve got to ask now. Now is the time to ask.”
She talked herself out of it.
We passed through her like a strong current pushes through a surfer’s feet in the water at the beach.
I guess she weighed up the fact that except for a couple of covid-19 safety trained staff members, there were absolutely no other customers in the store.
The timid staff member was nice to us. She left us alone.
Ria picked up a drink cup for Lincoln, and an iPhone case made of plastic memory bubbles.
I picked up a lights and sounds realistic dragon toy for Lincoln.
When we came to pay, we were all smiles with the service staff, but we chatted in a cagey “don’t ask don’t tell” manner.
On the car drive back home, I remarked to Ria, “You know, today was a really good day. The only downer was when we got discriminated against by Best & Less staff. Other than that, it was a great day.”
She agreed.
Diary Of A Mad Chaos is a daily diary written from March 1996 until today, of which individual books and book series have been created, namely “The Lost Years” an exploration of young, entwined love, the “Wubao In China (猎艳奇缘)” book series which provides an extensive comparative analysis of the cultural differences between Eastern and Western societies, and the book titled “Foreigner (华人)” an exploration of race relations in Australia.
