This commentary is by Elayne Clift, who writes from Saxtons River, www.elayne-clift.com.
Late on a freezing, snowy night during the harsh winter, my daughter texted me that a large squirrel had been clawing desperately at the kitchen window screen of her fourth-floor Brooklyn brownstone for days. Growing ever more frantic, the squirrel had started creating holes in the screen. She thought perhaps it was hungry and began to think of the critter as her pandemic pet.
Being a Jewish mother, I thought it was probably rabid and she should call pest control immediately. She texted back “too late” with a smiley face. Then I wondered how the animal had managed to scale the building to find a good screen to gnaw on. Perhaps, I thought, it had been driven onward by the delicious smells emanating from the kitchen — my daughter is a superb cook — but realized that was not likely, unless it had successfully navigated the fire escape.
In any case, I could relate to the squirrel’s ravishing angst. I had no need to scratch at screens or scale brick walls; I am among the lucky ones warmly sheltered (I don’t live in Texas) and well-fed during the Covid pandemic that was making us all crazy. But I did have a strong urge, metaphorically speaking, to scratch a few people’s eyes out.
I’m talking about politicians who live such privileged lives that they can hop on planes and head to other countries on a whim to escape cold weather or Covid boredom (especially those who live in Texas) while their constituents suffer mightily from a failed infrastructure and a gross lack of political will.
I’m also talking about politicians who speak out of both sides of their mouths in the space of a day, creating an astounding exoneration of certain people who clearly deserve to be held accountable for things like orchestrating near massacres.
I wouldn’t mind poking an eye or two belonging to folks who tell lots of lies and say really stupid things as if an ethnic group could really send laser beams to the U.S. from outer space, or who say they didn’t send people to Congress “to do the right thing.” Or people who make six-digit salaries and have great health insurance and pensions but think regular working folks who keep their worlds clean and ticking along should be able to get by on less than $15 an hour.
I’d also like to poke the people who design online forms that are totally impossible to navigate, especially when they have to do with accessing lifesaving vaccinations or collecting the health insurance benefits you’ve paid about a gazillion dollars for over the years.
Then there are the geniuses who write product instructions that are missing a step or two, which is like sharing a recipe you really don’t want others to follow successfully.
And how about the people who have no life other than robo-calling all day or spewing spam that could inadvertently ruin your life if you accidentally click on the links they send?
As for the multitudes of people who never have the courtesy to reply to a message, query or request because they don’t need something from you and they never have to look you in the face, let me just say there’s an eye I wouldn’t mind spitting in.
And that’s just my short list.
Covid has made us all cranky, for sure, but what a relief it is that writers like Audrey Lorde and Carolyn Heilbrun, and those who preceded or followed them (and there are many), gave women like me permission to be angry and expressive, free of the silence of “good girls and fine ladies.” No longer corseted, close-mouthed, or coerced into silence in the face of life’s irritations, political nonsense, and daily news of further disasters, like other women I can give up being demure, and experience the freedom that comes with knowing “the truth shall set you free” — even in the face of fools who take flight, blathering politicians, dudes who write code or spam, and those who are too rude to reply.
Thanks to that hungry or rabid squirrel, I feel better now, proof that there’s legitimate relief in ranting. I really needed that!
