TORONTO - In an industry-leading move, retail giant Winners has announced that it will be expanding its operations with a spin-off operation for the unvaccinated, “Losers,” making for the first non-racial segregated shopping experience in Canada.
Losers is slated to open in March 2022 at 45 Winners locations across Canada, after remodelling for separate entrances, exits, bathrooms and parking lots. Walls will separate the two outlets to ensure a no-risk shopping experience for the vaccinated.
“Losers will offer all the same quality merchandise we’ve always offered, but at a slight premium, to offset the costs of daily sanitation procedures expected by our fully-vaccinated Winners customers,” CFO Penny Dreadful told GeoffOlson2.0. “We acknowledge the ill-informed decisions of some people to trust their natural immunity and off-patent treatments for the COVID virus, because, after all, bad decisions are a big reason people shop here. We want to honour that.”
Although the unvaccinated will not be allowed into the physical retail space of Winners, masked or otherwise, they will still be able to shop at Winners online and receive similar “quality delivery service” enjoyed by the company’s fully vaccinated customers. “Albeit with a week’s wait or more for shipment,” Dreadful added.
The move is part of the company’s strategy for dealing with political pressure to enforce a vaccine mandate. The new Losers division will be staffed by the fraction of Winners employees who resisted having a mandate imposed. “Isolating the unvaxxed together is our way of building community,” Dreadful observed with a smile.
Reaction to the announcement has been swift. Commentators on Twitter have criticized Winners for the “bad precedent” of introducing segregation into the Canadian consumer landscape, claiming it’s discriminatory. The Winners CFO dismissed this claim with a laugh. “That’s just silly. This isn’t like racism – that’s visible discrimination. You certainly can’t tell who the unvaxxed are by sight - it’s not as if they’re all obviously sick or dropping like flies in the streets – but luckily we have the vaccine passport to facilitate medical apartheid!”
Frederico Feeldhand, head of the Canadian Labour Coalition, has blasted the retailer for “widening the scope” of health-based segregation. “We already have a two-tier society, with millions of Canadians barred from entering restaurants, bars and civic spaces because of their personal health decisions. The vaccine mandate is fracturing families and friendships, and taking a wrecking ball to the labour force. Granted, a decision to not vaccinate is completely irrational and dangerous to yourself and others, but these people aren’t vermin. As Canadians, we must demonstrate nominal respect for their Charter Rights before they’re frogmarched off to internment camps.”
Because Winners and Losers outlets will operate cheek to jowl, some shoppers have expressed concern that walls may not offer enough sheilding for those not fully protected by their rushed-into-production, leaky-ass gene therapy injections. “I’m worried,” said Doreen Nesbitt, a shopper GeoffOlson2.0 randomly intercepted in a Kamloops Winners parking lot. “What if the two stores share common air circulation? Will I be breathing the same air as the unvaccinated? And would a face mask even protect me from that? It’s a scary thought. And what if some horse dewormer-using loser climbs up into the ducts in a Losers washroom, and ends mingling among the winners in Winners?”
Winners CTO Ignatius O’Reilly says such concerns are misplaced. “We already use the highest quality HEPA filters available in our retail operations, above and beyond what the mall operations offer. Also, at the end of every working shift we will spray and wipe down all our merchandise in both locations with DDT. And if an unvaccinated person somehow manages to get past the checks at the front, the absence of a vaccine passport signal from them will light up our security system like the 4th of July!”
“Even though the unvaccinated will be welcome at Losers, the COVID virus and its variants won’t be,” O’Reilly adds. “We’re aiming for Biosafety Level 3 in our operations. By this time next year, we want even OCD-afflicted hypochondriacs on their 10th booster shot to be enjoying Winners as their shopping safe space.”
Must remember to visit Winners soon! Satire is the best way to avoid depression yet devised, thank you!
Good one Geoff!