The 5% Rule

A minority of the bizarre Covid bad-etiquette incidents I think can't be attributed to accident, grogginess, preoccupation, symptom fatigue, etc. Specifically, I've seen a few incidents in the last week or two, of people who really did seem to go out of their way to intentionally cough on/at someone.

It's sad, but I guess I can believe it: some people will be nasty sometimes, and Covid time gives them a weapon (whether they have it, or the victim merely wonders whether they have it), and they can do it with impunity.

(I saw something related, earlier in Covid, but it was usually presumed anti-maskers who seemed to do an intentional/faux cough as they passed someone wearing a mask, more like they intended it to be a joke. What I've seen recently seems to have nastier intent.)

I have only a handful of anecdotes, but I wonder whether the idea of intentionally spreading Covid (or making people think you did) was introduced in pop-culture recently, and people more inclined to be nasty latched onto it.

For example, many years ago, I signed up for a landline phone (when that’s all there was), and signed up for a particular special service that Ameritech was offering that would allow me to have a computer on a modem running 24/7 without getting unreasonable charges. Eventually, I get the first bill and it’s charging me the regular rate. I sigh and call them. They agree it’s their mistake and they’ll fix it to remove the charge and it will be reflected in the next bill. It isn’t. I go around in circles for 6 months, with my bill increasing to thousands of dollars. Finally I call them up and just start screaming at someone, and that is what finally got it fixed.

I’m not proud to have done that, but sometimes it’s the only option. The person I was yelling at wasn’t the one who caused the problem or lied to me, but I didn’t know of any other options at the time. (I was raised by wolves, it turns out.) And, ultimately, it worked.