Ugh, of fucking course. You can’t just make a nice, normal friend, can you? As if meeting new people in your thirties isn’t difficult enough on its own, you have to go ahead and attract every dipshit the right-wing ecosystem has deemed fit to create and shoot in your direction. Case in point: Andrew, the ostensibly cool dude you met at the Testament show last week, just referred to the COVID-19 vaccine as “the jab”.
Goddamnit. Maybe he just casually refers to them as such for no reason in particular? Hmmm, highly unlikely. It’s doubtful that there’s a single recorded case in all of human history of someone who’s not a gullible, anti-vax idiot unironically using that phrase. Plus, he just tossed it out while you two were discussing how your favorite metal venue started hosting shows again at the tail-end of the pandemic. To quote him directly: “I really wanted to go to the Cattle Decapitation show back in 2021, but you needed to have gotten ‘the jab’ to get in”. There’s really no way around it.
But fuck, man, he seemed really cool, otherwise. You both talked to some dude at the show last week wearing that Municipal Waste shirt with a picture of Trump blowing his brains out, and he didn’t seem bothered at all by that, so you just kind of assumed he was liberal or, at the very least, completely apolitical. Maybe he’s just a really big Jenny McCarthy fan, or something? Is there a way to casually mention to him that extensive clinical trials and ongoing monitoring of hundreds of millions of cases proved, without a doubt, that the COVID-19 vaccine is extremely safe and effective, and serious adverse effects were so rare as to be completely diminished by the risk of worse issues caused by the disease itself? No, too late. The conversation has already switched to whether the Pirates have what it takes to make the playoffs. And yeah, Brandon Lowe’s contract should definitely be extended. Fuck.
Alright, better just let it slide, unless a new red flag shows itself. It is his body, after all, and it’s not like your friendship is based on epidemiology. There are myriad topics you two see eye-to-eye on, so maybe focus on those. Just be on the lookout for any other sketchy comments.
Oof, he just said that it’s a good thing we attacked Iran, and these high gas prices are a small price to pay for the peace of mind that comes with attacking the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism. Maybe it’s time to find another friend.
