58. Driving on the right side

Day 8 of my quarantine.

 

There are laws—and there are laws. We might quibble about speed limits—does Montana still do without them in its wide-open spaces?—but we don’t contest the law that says we drive on the right side of the road. We also generally obey stop signs and traffic lights, use our turn signals, drive sober, and make sure we have two headlights and that the stoplights work. We don’t want a ticket, but if we get one, nine times out of ten we admit we were in the wrong—that we’d broken the law—and we pay our fines. And even when we contest, I don’t hear anyone saying there should be no traffic laws at all.

 

We also read the signs in public and business restrooms with some comfort; “wash your hands; llave sus manos,” they say, and sometimes threaten to fire an employee caught disobeying. Most of us appreciate eating in clean places being run by people who wash their hands. And if we do get sick after eating at a restaurant we’re likely to file a complaint with the owner or manager. Or we drop it and don’t eat there anymore. And hope they go broke. We don’t question the need for food-handler laws.

 

We might bristle at some clean air and water laws, but my guess is that most of us have sympathy for the families with young children suffering because there was lead in their water. We assume that water comes out of our tap clean and fit to drink, and in this modern world, with a million chemicals that can threaten our health, we’ll trade our mayor’s freedom to set local rules for a more stringent authority. 

 

There are all kinds of laws that are “rules of the road,” that make our lives safer and easier. Not following these laws might make us feel powerful in the moment, like a drunk teenager roaring down the wrong side of a seemingly empty freeway in the middle of the night might feel—or it might kill us. 

 

Wearing a facemask is that kind of law. Not being able to fill the church or belly up to the bar in a pandemic is that kind of law. It’s about your health and mine. Let’s all stay in the right lane and use our turn signals.

 

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