St. Fratty’s Day
Our next door fraternity boy neighbors, who are careful not to have parties at night and are friendly and courteous, threw what in SLO is a traditional “St. Fratty’s Day” 8:00 AM bash the Saturday morning before St. Patricks Day. They had told us of the plan the day before and neither of us were concerned, since we had planned a Saturday morning rendezvous for 6:30. Once the festivities started I went up the hill in back and looked over the fence and gave a thumbs up, which produced this response:
They urged me to join them, which I did, thinking I was being discreet by elbow bumping instead of hand shaking. Sky high on endorphins from the earlier activity, reinforced by avid attentions of the sorority girls, I did not resist many much closer contacts and couldnt help thinking if the end of the world was near, this was the way to go.
When I got back home Jan was not amused. She’d been reading the morning’s news about the urgent necessity for “social distancing,” and told me immediately to take off all my clothes and put them in the washing machine and to shower thoroughly, soaping everywhere. I did as she said, but still felt the glow of being a “celebrity””their word”among the neighbors, and so sent you the photos. Fortunately I left it at that, though Jan put her picture from our yard up on Facebook. But as the day went on and the news got steadily grimmer, she got more and more pissed at me, and I felt stupider and guiltier, realizing that the party itself, and my succumbing to it was precisely what the Surgeon General and even the President now was cautioning against. We’ll only know in a couple of weeks whether that lapse will have led to serious consequences. But Jan did acknowledge this morning, that though she chose not to join me at the party, she didnt try to stop me going.
As of Friday all schools in the County are closed until April 15, and our burgeoning educational Farm programs are shut down.