SATIRE

By Maci Taylor, Back Page Editor  

The infamous Western Massachusetts bar that drew massive internet attention amid a change in policy has started a “soft closing.” 

The Last-Ditch Bar is a self-described “Lesbian bar & venue for dykes, gender freaks, transexuals, workers and their friends.” Only about .01% of the population can actually say all of those words in their description without being jumped. But that isn’t what makes them controversial.  

It’s their mandated COVID-19 masking policy. Masks not mascs.

You know, the virus from over six years ago that caused us to field class zoom calls from our beds. You know, the virus that stopped mandating masks because they literally made multiple vaccines for it… 

Originally, Last Ditch required their … guests… to sport a N95 mask while in their establishment. But, on Aug. 31, they announced that on Saturdays the bar would be mask optional. Let’s just say this did not go over well with the COVID conscious lesbian community.  

It became chaos online with community members believing that this policy change is a mass disabling event for the immunocompromised, and as a result Last Ditch should be firebombed and looted.  

Now, after the backlash, the bar has no other choice other than to close. But, what might take over the space after this beautiful once safe place is gone? 

Maybe a Scientology church will be built on top of Last Ditch’s ruins. Tom Cruise will recruit the once protestors of the building and turn them into auditors. Then they can read the E-Meter and tell us when the aliens are coming and how to remove the COVID microchip from your body.  

Or possibly a Trump Hotel can fill the vacancy. There would be a five-floor shrine to Charlie Kirk with Erika Kirk’s eyes as the wallpaper in every room. In the basement, you’d find all of Trumps former allies like Mike Pence, Barron Trump with his “sootcase” and poor Katie Zacharia who went to a bar in China. Finally, there will be a fantasy suite for Trump and John Husted to make sweet, sweet love in.  

Perhaps a water slurping data center can provide a new life for this building. This data center would power Grok and the AI from this center would force users to create Elon Musk deepfakes. Also, a small section of the data center will power Hello Muskie, which the administration has been pushing Xavier students to use even though it was a clear waste of tuition money. But that’s okay because now I know where the next racist college republican event is held! 

But, what if we kept the COVID conscious lesbian bar format?  

Maybe the bar will turn into a bubonic plague anti-vaxxer Gay Transgender conversion clinic that also does abortions. For admission, guests must wear a black beaked mask and in groups, they are required to use a Ouija board to communicate to the lost souls created from the abortions. 

Or a Salvation Army Santa bell ringers underground dog fight club ring where Rainforest Café caters the event.  

Or a Emo-Femboys that work as embalmers at a community communist aerobics gym.  

There are too many options for this Western Massachusetts location, but one thing is for sure: the COVID conscious lesbian bar is no longer a welcomed business here.