We have all had those moments, when it strikes us that we have screwed things up. oops!, I can’t believe I did that, how stupid or how embarrassing.
The keys locked in the car,
the most important item on the grocery list not in the bag when arriving home,
the forgotten birthday,
the bill you meant to pay but got buried in some pile of stuff that was of no matter.
Yes, how many have there been over your time?
Lost count?……….well so have I.
The nice thing about these kinds of mishaps or oversights is that for the most part they
are correctable and forgivable.
An apology here or there, a late fee paid, a service call to your home, a slight change in the evenings dinner menu and all is well.
Yes oops!, but no big deal…..things just happen.
But there are other oops moments that carry more weight, really make a difference and show a degree of outright stupidity, carelessness, and ignorance that is not forgivable or soon to be forgotten with the standard apology, misdirection, or embarrassment.
These are moments and times when you really did fuck up and oops! becomes a massive understatement and shameful………oops! is just not good enough in these moments, nor should it be.
In the time in which we live there seems be more and more of these moments.
Damn serious, tragically impactful, and unforgivable.
By design, ignorance, greed, or uncaring, we have fallen into this pattern where we should have known better,
the writing was in large block letters on the wall,….we had been there before.
The lessons were there to be learned if we had paid attention and really cared in the first place.
But, OOPs!, it did not work out that way….we failed to act and sure enough it has happened again.
I remember Sandy Hook, ten years ago but etched in one’s mind forever.
Young children murdered, parents devastated, a community forever changed by a senseless act of violence.
Did it really make a difference if it was a sane or insane act?
The bodies were still there, the blood fresh,
the scenario so familiar……..a young man with a gun(s) and lots of ammunition on an evil mission.
The gun was easily accessible….but does it make a difference how it was obtained.
It was there, he got it regardless of legal or illegal ownership.
But only an oops! moment to the gun heads;
unfortunate, tragic, but just an anomaly.
Their eyes didn’t see the dead children, go face to face with the grieving parents, attempt to explain to them how life goes on and things someday will be okay.
That never happened because it was just an oops! moment, one of those things that was unlikely to happen again and truthfully there were more important things to worry about when it came to guns,……….. animals to kill, macho cravings to satisfy, and delusions to protect.
In time, all will be forgotten, the narrative changed, new stories to focus on.
Not correctable, but time seems to hide most wounds, except of course if it was your innocent and defenseless child that was gunned down.
But thats the other guys problem, for now at least.
Most likely the vast majority of these people had not heard of Uvalde,Texas until today.
OOPS!, it had happened again, elementary kids murdered by a young man with a gun only a short time after black Americans were assassinated in Buffalo, New York by a white teen who did not want to be “replaced”.
In either case, do you want to ask the same questions again this time…….
where he got it, why he did it, how come no one picked up on this.
Or will these questions be delayed or put off until the families have time to “grieve” which in effect means they will never be addressed, because these families will never stop grieving.
Gun heads, in your 2nd amendment obsessed minds, it had happened again, twice.
Any saving grace in that most of the dead were people of color; impact not as dramatic if it had been your supermarket or your child’s elementary school?
Ten years having gone by with hundreds of other incidents slipping by, and nothing done……..it had not been just twice, but hundreds of shootings.
To you, was it just like the forgotten birthday card, oops!
Perhaps more clarity this time, an oops! moment on a different scale……. “maybe we have really fucked up?”
Or, as I listen to the chief gun heads and their paid ideological enforcers was it OOPS!, we better develop a strategy to cover our ass.
Dead kids, innocent adults, grieving communities, lives torn to shreds, all this aside it had become a real serious forgotten birthday card moment…….i mean to mom, your wife, girlfriend or both.
What a relief to those now in the planning stage for the next Buffalo or Uvalde.
Your failure to act, no your failure to respond on a human level had given them renewed faith that they could still pull this off.
For them it had been an OOPS! moment that someone might have screwed up their plans to kill others…………perhaps you this time.
In reality it was just a passing moment, nothing they should ever be concerned about, just look at the power scumbags involved……….nothing has or would ever screw up your glorious plan to commit additional mayhem.
Did you sleep well last evening, ted, Mitch, Josh, Wayne?
No restlessness or bad dreams at all?
Just wonderful dreams about the next insurrection in Washington.
You should be reminded that not far away in surroundings much less luxurious than yours, there were empty beds, haunted bedrooms, parents too emotionally exhausted to sleep or eat for that matter.
Parents checking one more time that this was not just a horrific dream as they checked those bedrooms for the peaceful and loving slumber they were so used to, from someone who they adored, who was was their world.
How many just fell to their knees, collapsing in grief that you do not know but someday will, I can only hope.
Your aloofness and exclusivity sickens me,
which button is it that you push to put on the sad, mournful face when in fact you could care less?
Which button plays the NRA script that you have learned so well, warding off reporters questions and calls for some level of human response?
Ted, Mitch, Josh, Wayne, you will someday pay your dues, your aloofness a screen to an inevitable vulnerability, your exclusivity existing only in your minds.
OOPS!, you and your cronies have really fucked this up for the past ten years.
You just didn’t miss the birthday, you denied the persons existence not once but multiple times over that time.
Don’t you realize that someday, in some way you will have to own up…..pathetic figures recorded in history or some face to face encounter somewhere with the victims of buffalo, sandy hook, Uvalde, and all the other killing fields.
There will be no apologies good enough; no “I’ll make it up to you”.
Your arrogance and inhumanity will never be forgotten or forgiven.
It will be your legacy and negate any of the good you may have done but has yet to be discovered.
We all regret those oops! moments mentioned in the beginning of this piece; but they do pass with residual remorse and self- reflection, and over al self-forgiveness.
Your OOPs! moment will not be like that,
You will die with the faces of those kids and adults stored deep in your minds lurking, just waiting for the opportunity to exact revenge for your stupidity, insensitivity, and inhumanity.
Be sure cretins, they are there and will have their day.