Mt Rushmore Gets A COVID Mask
By: Jeff Stilwell
Tags: Satire, Politics, Humor, Masks, Comedy

Mt Rushmore Gets A COVID Mask

SOMEWHERE OVER THE BLACK HILLS — The rattle and hum is deafening. The teeth in my jaws are quaking. This sucks.

I’m talking with Michel — or trying to — the lead volunteer on this mission from Masques Sans Frontières (ie, Masks Without Borders). His accent, Parisian or Pyrennean, I think he said, makes it even harder to hear over the plane’s engines. The high winds gusting through the open doorway a few feet away just makes it worse.

All around us — squatting on the floor of the fuselage in various poses of excitement, boredom and everything in between — sit skydivers. Most are sitting or using their parachutes for pillows. Me? I’m tightly strapped into mine and I’m still not sure if I’m going to jump.

Nevertheless, I am here with volunteers of this gutsy organization that is fast making headlines for their breathtaking spectacles staged worldwide to promote awareness of how to fight off the most viral disease of our time.

And this week, they are coming to South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem’s backyard.

Why?

“Her actions are criminal!” shouts Michel into my ear. He rattles off the name Sturgis and then some statistics. While I cannot really hear them, I guess that he is speaking of the August 2020 motorcycle rally in South Dakota, infamous for becoming a super-spreader event (according to the CDC).

The rally became (in)famous, as well, as a symbol for going maskless in a COVID era no matter the consequences for others. Governor Kristi Noem refused to demand that masks be worn at the event, became a household name nationwide as a result, and has never looked back since.

These days, after a successful speech at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference, there is even buzz around the idea of her being Trump’s veep in 2024.

Michel is still yelling in my ear. “A half million dead?! Americans?! What are you thinking?”

I ask myself that question all that time. Particularly at moments when I am about to jump out of a perfectly good airplane.

At any rate, this latest spectacle staged by Masques Sans Frontières features placing masks on the four Presidents of Mt. Rushmore. On the ground, Michel explained that his advance team had just reported in. Last night they had parachuted in at 3 am, in order to pound hooks to either side of each presidential visage. Their task was a complete success.

Now, it’s our turn. At the rear of the plane, and the first to be pushed off, are four large bundles of canvas, each with its own chute. The idea here is that it is far easier to drop a canvas tarp that large on top of a mountain, than it is to winch one up.

I check my watch. Not long now. Michel is tapping into his phone, feverishly. He thrusts it at me with a savage grin, all teeth and sparklingly wild eyes. All I can see is the text…

la salope connait!

A girl sitting next to me leans in with a sweet smile — is that Chanel №5? She glances at the phone, then whispers huskily in my ear, “The bitch, she knows!”

Noem knows?! The governor knows?!

I wait for the plane to turn around. Nope. Instead, they are rising to their feet, strapping on their chutes and giving each other hugs. The two burliest are already man-handling the nearest tarp out the door.

I wonder what a Black Hills jail looks like?

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Hope you enjoyed that. More of my humor and satire here.