Standing up for one’s religious convictions often has consequences and requires personal sacrifice. One “Karen” recently learned that the hard way when she was told to leave a coffee shop after refusing to wear a face mask due to her “religious beliefs.”
The Karen showdown, which took place in a Peet’s Coffee, was recorded and uploaded to the r/FuckYouKaren subreddit, where it has received more than 1,200 upvotes. The video opens with Karen waving away the face mask a cashier offers her and saying she can’t wear it.
“We cannot wear it,” Karen says. “And my religious beliefs do not allow also to wear the mask, and you cannot discriminate against our religious beliefs or health condition.”
Wait, so is she refusing to wear the mask because of her “religious beliefs” or a “medical condition”? At this point, Karens basically play anti-mask madlibs, pulling nonsensical arguments out of a bag at random, so does it even matter?
Soon, the Peet’s store manager comes out to confront Karen and her group of Karen compadres, colloquially known as a “complaint,” a “whine,” or a “terror.” She addresses the flock with far more composure than one could reasonably be expected to muster after months of viral social media meltdowns.
“Ladies, I’m glad you came to film us,” the manager says. “I’m glad you came to show everyone that we do have a face mask mandate. I appreciate your strength, but we do have rules and regulations at this location, and Peet’s requires masks. So if you’re not gonna wear a mask, I will call the authorities to come remove you. If you’d like to order with us, we can take your order outside, and we’ll bring it out for you.”
“Do you realize that goes against the current CDC regulations?” another customer protests.
“I’m sorry. You could go anywhere,” the manager replies, not giving the Karens an inch.
At the behest of the other anti-mask mavens, the head Karen then produces several printed pages of what appear to be CDC guidelines to plead her case with the store manager. But Karen apparently put her faith in the wrong texts, as the manager fetches her phone and makes a call, ostensibly to local authorities.
The video ends with the Peet’s manager waiting for her call to go through, as Karen watches indignantly. (Hilariously, another disgruntled customer asks for two iced chai teas to go as the confrontation escalates.) Karen may have produced CDC documents to support her faith-based anti-mask argument, but instead of serving as a solid rock on which she could stand, they simply proved a worthless hill on which to die.
