No more fretting about COVID when we've got bigger Russian dictators to fry

So COVID is all over with now, huh? That’s great. And boy was that fast. Nothing is over until we say it is, and we just said it was. Turn out the lights Clara Barton, we’re all done here.

I know it’s scientifically explainable, in that the omicron variant, which is more contagious than “The Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats was in the ’80s, torched across America like a dry prairie fire, leaving nothing standing.

COVID is done because there’s no more fuel for the fire. It happened so quickly it made a faith healing look like a 12-hour spinal surgery. Throw away that mask brothers and sisters, you’re healed.

We’re all free to go back to the days when “flu-like symptoms” were an athlete’s code words for a hangover. This is kind of where we came in two years ago, when talk-radio entertainers were scoffing, “It’s the common cold, folks,” a statement to which nearly a million dead Americans would beg to differ.

But now it’s devolved to the point that it is the common cold. Omicron was big on quantity, not quality. Kind of like delivery pizza. Unlike earlier versions, the medical community doesn’t seem all that concerned about it anymore.

Remember in the early days, you caught the COVID and 18 vehicles would come screeching to a stop in your driveway and they'd wall you off in the pantry and all but bag your house like they were fumigating for roaches. Today, they don’t even send you a card.

So. Um. OK, what are we going to fight about now?

It’s hard to think that, just like that, we can go back to the days when it was possible for people to fly from Tampa and Chicago without throwing a tantrum. What are all of America’s drama queens and kings going to do now that no one is binding them to the stake with elastic ear bands?

Because once you’ve stormed the school board you can’t go back, I don’t think. Once they overran the Bastille, the French didn’t just go back to flipping crepes. You get drunk on your own celebrity that you’ve achieved among your Sunday crew at Buffalo Wild Wings.

And at the same time that the divisive issues of masks and shots are becoming moot, Ukraine has become a unifying factor, not just in America, but the world.

As more than one person has pointed out, if you can trigger a human-like emotion in a Swiss banker, you’ve really transgressed the bounds of common decency.

And forget the Swiss, those Teddy bears, the other morning there was news that ExxonMobil had pulled the plug on Russia. Wait, ExxonMobil? The company that would chew off its own arm if it increased its bottom line by a nickel? The same ExxonMobil that would commit to destroying the planet in the name of a brighter quarterly earnings statement? Who do they think they are all of a sudden, Whole Foods?

"We deplore Russia's military action that violates the territorial integrity of Ukraine and endangers its people," the company said in a statement.

Congrats Vladamir, getting ExxonMobil to care about people is like getting a vegan to care about osso buco.

I don’t know what it really matters — I don’t know many oligarchs, sorry to say. I’m sure they’re not going to starve, and in a practical sense I’m sure they can struggle along on $10 billion as easily as $20 billion.

But money is a little like anger — once you get used to a certain level of it, it’s hard to go back. I mean, we’ve all seen how touchy you-know-who gets when financial experts hint around that he might not be anywhere near as wealthy as he says he is.

And all told, whether it's fraudulent oligarchs or angry Americans, I know a lot of people are tired of both.

Tim Rowland is a Herald-Mail columnist

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Putin's aggression did what COVID couldn't: Unify the America