Yesterday, I prepared my purple rubber gloves, put a face mask in my pocket just in case I started coughing, and drove to the store, ready for anything. I put the gloves on and trudged to the entrance, keeping a wary distance, thinking to myself, am I six feet from that guy? Does it matter if we are both facing in the same direction, or is it more dangerous if we are facing toward each other? Wait, why is he stopping? Should I stop too, like keeping two car lengths from the guy in front of me?Oh, no, can I go around this slow guy without getting creamed by cars pulling up to the front door to disgorge a horde of people of all ages who I assume are all part of the same COVID-19 death squad, wait, I mean, family?
I guess if you are all part of one COVID-19 pod, you sink or swim together. That is sort of sweet, in a Three Musketeers kind of way. All for one, one for all, together we die, although we'd have a better chance if we spread out a little. But hey, we're family, and family stick together, right? I wouldn't know. My family has always preferred being far-flung.
Inside the door, the cart arena was almost empty. Most of the carts were apparently out in the parking lot. As I grabbed one of the last carts, praying it didn't have a hitch in its gitalong, I saw the cart wrangler leading a caravan of carts from the hinterlands. Ah, replenishments. Now if only the shelves were equally as replenished.
I donned my purple gloves but left my face mask in my pocket. We don't need the mask unless we are spewing germs, right? I'm not clear on the purpose of the gloves and face mask. Am I trying to keep viruses in or out? This is so confusing. Of course, I don't want to transmit something to someone, especially if I don't know if I'm sick with something gruesome like a killer virus. If I am going to transmit something to someone, it better be for a good reason, you know, because I don't like them and want them to feel as wretched as I do. But I'm not sick. I don't think. At least, before I went to the store, I could say with some certainty that I wasn't sick. But who knows now. I went to the store. Who knows what I touched. All my zucchini and apples could be contaminated with viruses just waiting to jump onto my unprotected hands. From there, it's an easy jump to my mouth. Agh, I rubbed my eyes once or twice yesterday! I washed my hands, multiple times, and I wiped down surfaces inside my car, but did I wash up after transporting the zucchini into the fridge? Oh my god, I'm doomed.
In the store, I observed some shocking behavior, mostly from myself. I drove my shopping cart with purpose, making eye contact sparingly, as if minimizing eye contact equated with minimizing air space. I think I read that the virus needs prolonged contact to make the leap between respiratory tracts, so if I whizz by a shopper in the frozen vegetables aisle, I'm probably okay, right? Especially if I don't make eye contact. I can do this. I quickly filled my cart with all the items on my list. I was especially happy to see there were some boxes of facial tissue on the shelf. Bigger boxes than I would normally buy, but in allergy season, I've been going through tissues like, well, like the virus going through a crowd of drunken teenagers on a Florida beach. I grabbed three boxes because I was running low.
No lollygagging in the produce today, wondering what parsnips taste like. I made it to the checkout line in record time. As I waited my turn, I felt a nudge from behind me. The old guy in line behind me at the checkout, ungloved and unmasked and wiping his dripping nose with a tissue, seemed to be trying to push his cart past me, even though there was no space for two carts.
“Hi, are you okay?” I asked politely, thinking I could get irate, but now is the time for compassion, let's practice your promise of being loving and kind in this challenging new world.
He smiled and mumbled something. I realized English was not his first language. I nodded my head and started putting my vegetables and tissue boxes on the conveyor belt. He backed off.
The customer ahead of me wore a face mask but no gloves. He poked the credit card gizmo with his bare fingers. That strategy was exactly the opposite of my strategy. I wondered if I had got the whole thing wrong, that I should be protecting my lungs rather than my fingers? Oh boy. This apocalypse is confusing.
I did my best to show appreciation to the checker, an older gal who wore her glasses on a string. I wondered if I was old enough to start doing that and if it would help me cope with my trauma.
“I sure do appreciate you being here today,” I said as she started scanning my modest collection of items.
“Essential workers,” she said grimly. “That's what they are calling us.” I got the impression she would rather have been at home. Not much I could say to that.
“Oh, you can only get one paper product per household,” she said after scanning two boxes of tissues. She put two boxes aside. I forlornly bagged the one box that passed the scan, thinking, dang, I hope my allergies will be calm this week or I'll be honking into my fingers over the sink.
When I got home, once again there was no place to park. My neighbors have embraced the shelter-in-place order by taking all the parking spaces. Not only that, they seem to spend all their time doing laundry.
After disinfecting my car, putting away my possibly contaminated apples and zucchini, and washing my hands several times singing the Alphabet Song, I checked my receipt. Of course, I was charged for two boxes of tissue. I now possess a very expensive box of tissue, perhaps the last box of tissue I will ever be allowed to purchase, if the world of paper products implodes along with everything else. I should probably have the box bronzed or encased in resin or something, a testament to a time when we bought expensive products to wipe our noses and then discarded them into the every-growing waste stream that will eventually choke us all to death.
Tonight, as I've been doing for the past two weeks, I'll drive over to my Mom's nursing home, wave at her through the window, note how the pace of her decline seems to be accelerating, and drive home.
Well, on that happy note, I'm signing off from the Love Shack, wallowing in self-isolation, which for me is pretty much no different than the life I normally lead. That is to say, alone again, naturally.
