Just where do you think you’re going dressed like that, Old Lady?

“Call them Boomer Teenagers or Disobedient Parents or Senior Delinquents, one thing is clear: the original helicopter parents are now the subjects of the hovering, and many are proving ungovernable.” — The Boston Globe

Listen to me, in this house, we have certain standards that we agree to live by. And those standards include washing our hands, not touching our faces, and not taking unnecessary trips out of the house if we are in high risk groups. And before you interrupt me, yes, being over sixty counts as high risk.

I know that your book club meets every third Friday of the month, and “all your friends are going to be there!” Well, maybe all your friends’ children don’t care as much as I do that you live through this pandemic we are currently experiencing. Don’t you roll your eyes at me. It is a pandemic. It was a pandemic before WHO made it official and it’s a pandemic now.

Does your so-called book club have a plan in place for appropriate social distancing? Will you be maintaining at least six feet of distance at all times? Or that a bottle of wine in your purse and a seven layer dip that you’re attempting to hide behind your back? Oh, how fun, all your friends can cluster around the two, weakening their immune systems with alcohol and then double-dipping their corn chips so that when the CDC finally gets this testing situation under control they’ll be able to see a small cluster resulting from the fact that “book club meets every third Friday.” When are you going to learn that the rules still apply to you? Especially to you! You got pneumonia twice last year!

Don’t make me send you all the articles I’ve been reading about the horrible deaths that people your age experience from making bone-headed decisions with no thought for the consequences. They have higher rates of complications and higher case fatality rates. I do too know what a case fatality rate is. I love you and want to keep you safe so I have made it my business to know.

Oh right, you think I’m going to buy that you’re “just going to the store” now? Not without an N95 mask you don’t. Oh, there isn’t one available? As if you haven’t been hoarding food and medical supplies your entire life as a response to the deprivation your own parents experienced during the great depression? Are you worried your ‘friends’ will think you’re overreacting to the virus? These don’t sound like very good ‘friends’ to me, do they? Maybe you should spend less time with these hooligans and more time learning a solitary hobby befitting someone your age.

Well I’m sorry you feel that way. I didn’t just wake up this morning and think to myself, “What can I do to ruin my mother’s life? I could get a tattoo, or marry someone with no job, or move across the country. No, I know, I’ll tell her not to go to her book club this month.” Believe it or not, that’s not my goal in life.

No you may not come help babysit the grandkids. The kids have been disgusting vectors of disease all winter and I am not letting them within ten feet of you. Don’t play that grandparent card with me! I made you a grandparent and I will not let you just fritter it away by getting sick when the entire health care system is about to be overrun by your idiot friends playing Russian Roulette with their health.

Thank you, yes, you signing up for an Instacart account does make me feel better. Now promise you’ll call if you need anything.

No, I can’t help you set up your Alexa.