I will grant you that there are nut jobs everywhere. Some would say Southern California is the grand daddy of nut jobs everywhere. But here in Wyoming is where we witnessed it first hand on our very first day back.
Our travels on the first day back took us to the local Wal Mart. Don't laugh. They have a decent grocery section with better prices than the local supermarkets. Besides, as many of you have seen from our Facebook posts, the bean grinder for our coffee broke -- both of them -- so this was an absolute emergency.
We parked on the side of the store, as we usually do, and put on our masks to go in, even though we are fully vaccinated including boosters. On our previous visit to this Wal Mart, we were pleased that about forty percent of the folks in the store appeared to be masked. Mind you, just about everywhere else we have been since the spring, the number of masked clientele has hovered somewhere between eighty and one hundred percent, but for Wyoming, this was a vast improvement.
Apparently, somebody sent a memo around to the locals. On this occasion, it would be a stretch to say that ten percent of the customers were masked. Somewhere in Wyoming, over the first weekend of October, COVID was declared cured for all, masked or unmasked, vaccinated or unvaccinated.
And then we walked past the pharmacy department. Considering that boosters are now available, I was interested in seeing if there was anyone waiting for a vaccine Nobody was in the waiting area. Nobody appeared to be in the vaccine rooms.
There was, however, one man, who we will refer to as WMC -- Wyoming Maga Cowboy, or maybe the Wal Mart Cowboy. Take your pick. WMC was front and center at the pharmacy line -- there was nobody else in line. He was a tall, thin drink of water with longish white hair and a thick droopy moustache to boot. On top of the white mane was a summer weight, stiff straw cowboy hat. The rest of the outfit was traditional cowboy in every sense, from the cowboy style button down shirt, to the blue jeans, to the boots.
And WMC was there with a purpose.
A loud purpose.
He started off by demanding a dose of Ivermectin. You know, the paste/concoction/whatever you want to call it used to deworm farm animals that some on the far right of the mental universe have come to believe without any proof whatsoever will cure COVID. We can start off this aspect of the discussion by noting that WMC was in the pharmacy department of Wal Mart talking to the poor victim of a Wal Mart pharmacist, demanding an animal dewormer. It apparently did not occur to him that the pharmacy department at Wal Mart, surprisingly enough, only dispenses medications intended for humans. It also did not apparently occur to him that if you are standing in a Wal Mart pharmacy speaking to the Wal Mart pharmacist about a medication, you likely need a prescription to get it.
As a side note here, I would offer that when we got home, my wife went on line. Apparently, you can get Ivermectin on line without a prescription. We have a large farm and supply store here in town. I have no doubt you could get Ivermectin there as well. Maybe WMC should have looked there.
Needless to say, the Wal Mart pharmacist was a little short on supply of horse de-wormers, but offered WMC a vaccine injection, considering there was no wait for one, and most likely considering where we are, nobody had made an appointment for one anytime that morning. WMC declined, offering that he was not going to have anything injected into his body the ingredients of which were not known to him. Putting aside for the moment the fact that WMC probably did not know the ingredients of the groceries we later saw him buying, I would be willing to bet just about anything that he did not know the ingredients in Ivermectin either.
Undeterred by the looming lunacy in front of him, the pharmacist assured WMC that the vaccine was safe and had been researched, reviewed and approved by experts. WMC wanted to know how the pharmacist knew this. The pharmacist replied that it was in the medical and pharmaceutical journals and was in the news, to which WMC replied that he does not believe half the things he hears in the news. At this point, I wanted to ask him if he believed half the things he reads in the medical or pharmaceutical journals -- or the farm report for that matter -- but it was at this point that my wife, who has much more sense than I do, decided we had heard more than enough and steered me away from WMC and towards the automatic coffee grinders.
We are guessing that WMC did not take the pharmacist up on the vaccine offer, as he was seen walking around the dairy section of the store less than fifteen minutes later.
And all of this is a tragedy. Not only did WMC not receive a COVID vaccine that day, but he likely remains at risk for getting worms as well.
