I didn’t drive home from my friend’s house last night. My wife did.

It was our first social outing since the pandemic began. We sat outside on the porch, about 10 feet from our host — a fellow author who graciously provided hand sanitizer on the little table in front of us.

Both of us brought our masks, although we had to lower them to drink. My wife had water; I had wine. I don’t drink too often, but after a few glasses, I knew it would be better if she drove home, even though our house was just around the corner. It was the right thing to do. The responsible thing to do.

But this morning, I woke up with an idea.

What if we all just drove drunk? ON PURPOSE. Maybe we should all just say, “To hell with the law and the police and our own personal safety? And who cares about those other people on the road? They’re just losers who are infringing on our right to drink and drive!

“Mothers Against Drunk Driving? Who are those losers, anyway? Just a bunch of whiny women who can’t handle the fact that their kids have been, or might be, killed by someone who’s exercised their RIGHT to go out and have a good time. This ain’t the goddamn Prohibition.

“I need my keg and my fifth of Jack to deal with this corona B.S. they’re trying to sell us. This is America! Land of the free! Not only will I get drunk, but I’ll do it just to spite you f---ers. And I’ll get behind that wheel, not because I really feel like driving and puking my guts out from motion sickness, but to prove a point. To teach you a lesson.

“I’m free to get drunk. And drive. And anyone who disagrees with me can f---ing go to hell!”

What does this sound like to you?

Psychotic behavior

Cruel?

Absurd?

Appalling?

Selfish?

Imbecilic?

Of course, it’s all those things. I don’t know of anyone who would suggest that we do any of this. Yet there are people who take the exact same attitude toward masks and COVID-19.

People die because their fellow citizens don’t wear masks, just like they die if they’re hit by a drunken driver. Maybe there are four passengers in that other car, and they all wind up dead because you decided to drive drunk.

Now imagine if people outside that car died, too. That’s what happens if you’re infected and you don’t wear a mask. Because unlike a car crash, coronavirus is contagious. It spreads. To Grandma and Grandpa back home. To your friends and their friends and their friends. And families.

But maybe you hate that mask more than you love those people. That’s the only conclusion I can come to. It would explain why Donald Trump refused to wear a mask for months, and why he scheduled a political rally for thousands of people, none of whom were required to wear masks.

He cares more about votes and personal power than people’s lives. Let that sink in.

Numbers don’t lie

Trump may lie, but the numbers don’t.

More than 10,000 people died in drunk-driving crashes during 2018.

It took half as long, six months, for COVID-19 to kill 170,000 people in the United States. That’s 17 times as many. And nearly 6 in 10 of those deaths can be prevented if 95% of the population wear masks.

There are people out there who refuse to do so because they think it infringes on their freedom. But if you knowingly risk infecting me with coronavirus by not wearing a mask, YOU’RE infringing on MY freedom. Not to mention my health and, potentially, my life — just as surely as if you got falling-down drunk and got behind the wheel of a car.

Or if you had sex with someone if you thought you might have AIDS.

For some people, freedom has come to mean, “I’ll do whatever the f--- I want, and I don’t care what happens to anyone else.” Imagine what would happen if soldiers who fought to defend that freedom had thought that way after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

How Christian of you

Imagine what would happen if another drunk driver hit YOU on the road. Or another person infected with a virus refused to wear a mask, and YOU got sick as a result. Or your wife did. Or your parent. Or your child.

Whatever happened to the Golden Rule? Or “love your neighbor as yourself”?

If you refuse to wear a mask and call yourself a Christian, you may or may not be spreading deadly droplets. But one thing’s for sure: You’re spitting in the face of Jesus and his teachings.

I hesitated a couple of minutes before writing this, because I thought to myself: Maybe someone will actually take my absurd analogy about drunken driving seriously. Maybe they’ll go out and drink and drive on purpose because they’re just that cruel. And selfish. And stupid.

I wouldn’t have thought that a year ago, but now I wonder.

We live in a country where people go around punching, spitting on, and cussing out their fellow citizens who wear masks to keep from getting sick. How much different would it be to punch someone out because they dared to be a designated driver? Or to purposely get drunk, get behind the wheel of a car, and drive it head-on into another vehicle just to prove a point?

Actually, it is different.

Crashes caused by drunken drivers are tragic and preventable, just like coronavirus infections.

But at least they’re not contagious.

Featured photo (little girl in mask) reproduced under CC-BY-SA license, by www.vperemen.com.